Electronic System For Data Acquisition and

University of Brasília – UnB
Faculty UnB Gama – FGA

Electronic Engineering
Electronic System for Data Acquisition and

Control of a Automotive Brake Test Bench
Author: João Victor Avancini Guimarães

Advisor: Evandro Leonardo Silva Teixeira Ph.D.
Brasília, DF
2018
João Victor Avancini Guimarães
Electronic System for Data Acquisition and Control of a

Automotive Brake Test Bench
Thesis submitted to the course of undergra-

duate in Electronic Engineering at the Uni-
versity of Brasília, as a partial requirement
to obtain a Bachelor’s degree in Electronic
Engineering.
University of Brasília – UnB

Faculty UnB Gama – FGA
Brasília, DF
2018
Electronic System for Data Acquisition and Control of a Automotive Brake
Test Bench/ João Victor Avancini Guimarães. – Brasília, DF, 2018-
114 p. : il. (some colors.) ; 30 cm.
Graduation Thesis – University of Brasília – UnB

Faculty UnB Gama – FGA , 2018.
1. Electronic Instrumentation. 2. Braking Tests. I. Evandro Leonardo
Silva Teixeira Ph.D.. II. University of Brasilia. III. Faculty UnB Gama. IV. Elec-
tronic System for Data Acquisition and Control of a Automotive Brake Test Bench
CDU 02:141:005.6
Electronic System for Data Acquisition and Control of a

Automotive Brake Test Bench
Thesis submitted to the course of undergra-

duate in Electronic Engineering at the Uni-
versity of Brasília, as a partial requirement
to obtain a Bachelor’s degree in Electronic
Engineering.
Thesis approved. Brasília, DF, 30𝑡ℎ of November of 2018:
Evandro Leonardo Silva Teixeira

Ph.D.
Advisor
Wellington Avelino do Amaral Ph.D.

Invited Lecturer
Edison Gustavo Cueva Ph.D.

Invited Lecturer
Eng. Ricardo Noronha Junior

Internship Supervisor
Brasília, DF
2018
Acknowledgements
First of all I thank my parents Rita and Carlos and my siblings Pedro, Ana and
Frederico for all their efforts, dedication and support over the years.
To my supervisor Prof. Dr. Evandro Leonardo Silva Teixeira for his patience,
support and teachings given throughout my stay at the University of Brasilia.
To my friends Mairon, Wener and Joel for the comradeship along our stay at
University of Brasília.
To my work colleges during my internship at Autotrac Comércio e Telecomunica-
ções S/A for sharing their experience and knowledge with me.
To the lecturers Julia Peterle, Aline Demuner, Graciela Ramos, Carmen Santos,
Gerardo Pizo, Cristiano Miosso, Gilmar Beserra, Richard Pearl, Josh Reynolds, Eleanor
Baldwin, Steve Hegarty, Wellington Amaral, Sebastién Rondineau and other teachers that
I had the privilege of learning from over the years.
“Science, my lad, is made up of mistakes, but they are mistakes which it is useful to
make, because they lead little by little to the truth.”
(Jules Verne, A Journey to the Center of the Earth)
Abstract
With the evolution of the automotive industry, vehicles come out of the factory each time
with more power and faster top speeds. Along with this enhancement in performance the
concern in effectiviness of brake systems should also increase.
There are already consolidated standards rules for brake system testing, this project is
focused with respect to SAE J2522 regulation that addresses on brakes tests on passenger
vehicles.
This paper aims to study the major factors regarding brake tests and electronic instrumen-
tation in order to develop an electronic instrument system for automation of a testbench
used to perform brake tests. The major output of the project is to design an electronic
system able to measure all the relevant physical data and to control the needed actuators.
Key-words: Electronic Instrumentation. Brake Test. Automotive Systems Simulation.

List of Figures
Figure 1 – Schematic for disk brake systems (NICE, 2017) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29

Figure 2 – Brake Tests Diagram of Execution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
Figure 3 – Crankshaft Position Sensor (REMAN, 2016) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
Figure 4 – Magnetic Sensor Signal (PETROLHEAD GARAGE, 2014) . . . . . . . 33
Figure 5 – Thermocouple characteristic voltage output (BOJORGE, 2014) . . . . 34
Figure 6 – Thermocouple Measurement (ECIL, 2016) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
Figure 7 – Distension (INSTRUMENTS, 2016a) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
Figure 8 – Wheatstone bridge (INSTRUMENTS, 2016b) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
Figure 9 – Piezo Accelerometer (UK, 2016) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
Figure 10 – Instrumentation Amplifier (CIRCUITS, 2016) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
Figure 11 – INA 118 (INSTRUMENTS, 2000a) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
Figure 12 – ATmega16/32U4 Block Diagram (ATMEL, 2018) . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
Figure 13 – Duty Cycle Examples (DEE, 2016) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
Figure 14 – ESD Test Waveform (LITTLELFUSE, 2015a) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
Figure 15 – Campling action of an uni-directional TVS (RENESAS, 2016c) . . . . . 44
Figure 16 – Campling action of a bi-directional TVS (RENESAS, 2016b) . . . . . . 44
Figure 17 – V X I characteristic of an uni-directional TVS (RENESAS, 2016e) . . 45
Figure 18 – V X I characteristic of a bi-directional TVS (RENESAS, 2016d) . . . . 45
Figure 19 – Project Problem Depuration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51

Figure 20 – Hardware Project Architecture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
Figure 21 – Minimum Component Tachometer Diagram (TEXAS INSTRUMENTS,
2000) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
Figure 22 – Tachometer with Adjustable Zero Speed Voltage Output, adapted from
(TEXAS INSTRUMETS, 2018) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
Figure 23 – Speed Acquisition Channel Circuit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
Figure 24 – 1.225V voltage reference circuit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
Figure 25 – Temperature Measurement Block Diagram . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
Figure 26 – AD8495 Functional Block Diagram (DEVICES, 2011) . . . . . . . . . . 59
Figure 27 – RFI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
Figure 28 – Thermocouple Signal Conditioning Circuit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
Figure 29 – Overvoltage Detection Circuit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
Figure 30 – INA125 Schematic (INSTRUMENTS, 1997) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
Figure 31 – Conditioning Circuit for the Load Cell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
Figure 32 – 16-LFCSP (DEVICES, 2016) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
Figure 33 – Adafruit ADXL335 - 5V ready (ADAFRUIT, 2018) . . . . . . . . . . . 66
Figure 34 – Accelerometer Signal Conditioning Circuit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
Figure 35 – Accelerometer Sensor Detection Circuit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
Figure 36 – Weg CFW-08 Frequency Inverter (WEG, 2017) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
Figure 37 – Sallen-Key Active Low Pass Filter (TEXAS INSTRUMENTS, 1999) . . 71
Figure 38 – Simulated Circuit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
Figure 39 – Simulation for 25% duty cycle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
Figure 42 – PWM to Speed Reference Circuit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
Figure 43 – PMOS low side driver (ELECTRONICS TUTORIALS, 2018) . . . . . 73
Figure 44 – Digital Output Circuit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
Figure 45 – Digital Input Circuit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
Figure 46 – ATmega32U4 pinout (PIGHIXX, 2018) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
Figure 47 – MCU Core Circuit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
Figure 48 – Crystal Oscillator Circuit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
Figure 49 – USB Port Protection Circuit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
Figure 50 – 5V Power Supply Circuit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
Figure 51 – 4V1 voltage reference circuit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
Figure 52 – PCB Top 2D View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
Figure 53 – PCB Bottom 2D View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
Figure 54 – PCB Top View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
Figure 55 – Real PCB Assembled . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
Figure 56 – Microcontroller Code Map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
Figure 57 – Materials Disposition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95

Figure 58 – Frequency Inverter WEG-CFW08 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
Figure 59 – Electric Motor WEG . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
Figure 60 – Brake Disc Machine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
Figure 61 – Brake Disc Machine Pulley System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
Figure 62 – Brake Disc Arrangment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
Figure 63 – Load Cell Installation Scheme (CAIXETA, 2017) . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
Figure 64 – Load Cell Installed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
Figure 65 – Thermocouples Installed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
Figure 66 – CKP installed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
Figure 67 – Test Application Main Screen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
Figure 68 – Measurements of the first ten snubs of the test . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
Figure 69 – Temperature and Brake Force Measurements of The First Ten Snubs . 102
Figure 70 – Temperature Variation During The Whole Test . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
Figure 71 – Deceleration During the Whole Test . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
Figure 72 – Analog Output in Respect with Duty Cycle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
Figure 73 – Rotation in Respect with Duty Cycle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
Figure 74 – Vibration Acquisition Channel Test Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
List of Tables
Table 1 – Thermocouples and their operation ranges . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
Table 2 – ASCII Commands Reference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
Table 3 – Rotation Acquisition Channel Test Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90

Table 4 – Temperature Acquisition Channel 1 Test Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
Table 5 – Temperature Acquisition Channel 2 Test Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
Table 6 – Brake Force Acquisition Channel 1 Test Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
Table 7 – Brake Force Acquisition Channel 2 Test Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
Table 8 – Test Parameters Setup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
List of abbreviations and acronyms
SAE Society of Automotive Engineers.
GUI Graphical User Interface.
ABS Anti-lock Braking System.
CKP Crankshaft Position Sensor.
GPIO General-Purpose Input/Output.
SRAM Static Random-Access Memory
EEPROM Electrically Erasable Programmable Read-Only Memory.
DIP28 Dual In-line Package 28pins.
ISR Interruption Service Routine.
IC Integrated Circuit.
MCU Microcontroller Unit.
I2 C Inter-Integrated Circuit.
DAQ Data Acquisition.
PWM Pulse Width Modulation.
N-MOSFET N channel Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor Field-Effect Transistor.
LPF Low-Pass Filter.
TVS Transient Voltage Supressor.
OPAMP Operational Amplifier.
USB Universal Serial Bus.
UART Universal Asynchronous Receiver-Transmitter.
USART Universal Synchronous-Asynchronous Receiver-Transmitter.
ESD Electrostatic Discharge.
EMI Electromagnetic Interference.

PCB Printed Circuit Board.
RFI Radio Frequency Interference.
DAC Digital-to-Analog Converter.
ADC Analog-to-Digital Converter.
SNR Signal-to-Noise-Ratio.
RTD Resistance Temperature Detector.
HMI Human-Machine-Interface.
List of symbols
Pa Pascal: Unit used to measure pressure.
kPa 103 Pascal.
MPa 106 Pascal.

∘
C Celsius Degree: Unit used to measure temperature.
kph Kilometer per hour: Unit used to measure speed.
m Meters: SI unit used to measure distance.
cm 10−2 Meters.
s Seconds: SI unit for measuring time.
ms 10−3 Seconds.
hp Horsepower: Unit used to measure power.
kB KiloBytes: Used to measure memory size.
V Volts: SI unit for measuring electrical potential.
mv 10−3 Volts.
Ω Omega: SI unit for measuring electrical resistance.
A Ampere: SI unit for measuring electrical current.
mA 10−3 Ampere.
g Earth gravity acceleration (9.8𝑚/𝑠2 ).

Summary
1 INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
1.1 Purpose of the project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
1.2 Text Structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
2 LITERATURE REVIEW . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
2.1 Working principles of disk brake systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
2.2 The SAE J2522 regulation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
2.2.1 Monitored Parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
2.2.2 Brake Tests . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
2.3 Review of basic Electronic Sensors, Devices and Concepts Relevant
to this thesys . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
2.3.1 Rotation Measurement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
2.3.2 Temperature Measurement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
2.3.3 Brake Force Measurement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
2.3.4 Vibration Measurement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
2.3.5 Instrumentation Amplifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
2.3.5.1 Important features to consider in an amplifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
2.3.6 System Controlling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
2.3.6.1 Microcontroller basic characteristics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
2.3.6.2 Microcontroller Architecture and Most Important Parts . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
2.3.6.3 Pulse Width Modulation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
2.3.7 Circuit Protection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
2.3.7.1 Low Pass Filters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
2.3.7.2 Transient Voltage Supression Diodes (TVS) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
2.3.7.2.1 TVS diodes principle of operation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
2.3.7.2.2 Selecting TVS Diodes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
3 METHODOLOGY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
3.1 Literature Review . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
3.2 Problem Description . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
3.3 Project Conception . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
3.4 Case Study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
4 ACQUISITION AND CONTROL SYSTEM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49

4.1 Monitored Parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
4.2 Functional Requirements of the Testbench . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
4.3 Problem Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
4.3.1 Brake System Simulator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
4.3.2 Higher Layer Hardware . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
4.3.3 Lower Layer Hardware . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
4.3.3.1 Lower Level Hardware Interfaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
4.4 Rotation Acquisition Channel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
4.4.1 CKP Signal Conditioning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
4.4.1.1 LM2907 Basic Tachometer Circuit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
4.4.1.2 LM2907 Designed Circuit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
4.4.2 1.225V Reference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
4.5 Temperature Acquisition Channel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
4.5.1 Thermocouple Signal Conditioning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
4.5.2 Input Protection and Filtering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
4.5.3 Thermocouple Sensor Detection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
4.6 Brake Force Acquisition Channel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
4.6.1 Load Cell Signal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
4.6.2 Load Cell Signal Conditioning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
4.6.3 Load Cell Sensor Detection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
4.7 Vibration Acquisition Channel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
4.7.1 Accelerometer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
4.7.2 Signal Conditioning Circuit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
4.7.3 Sensor Detection Circuit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
4.8 Speed Reference Output Channel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
4.8.1 Speed Control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
4.8.2 Filter characteristics definition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
4.8.3 Sallen-Key Low Pass Active Filter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
4.8.4 Circuit Simulation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
4.8.5 Complete Circuit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
4.9 Digital Interfaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
4.9.1 Digital Outputs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
4.9.1.1 Low-side Driver . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
4.9.1.2 Digital Output Circuit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
4.9.2 Digital Inputs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
4.10 MCU . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
4.10.1 MCU circuit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
4.10.1.1 Core Circuit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
4.10.1.2 Crystal Oscillator Circuit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
4.10.1.3 USB Port Protection Circuit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
4.11 Voltage Supplies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
4.11.1 Power Supplies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
4.11.1.1 5V Supply . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
4.11.2 Voltage References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
4.11.2.1 4V1 Reference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
4.12 Circuit Fabrication and Assembly . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
4.12.1 PCB Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
5 FIRMWARE PROJECT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
5.1 Microcontroller programming basics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
5.2 Code Map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
6 EXPERIMENTAL TESTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
6.1 Hardware Interfaces Test . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
6.1.1 Rotation Aquisition Channel Test . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
6.1.1.1 Configuration and Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
6.1.1.2 Results and Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
6.1.2 Temperature Acquisition Channels Test . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
6.1.2.2 Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
6.1.2.2.1 Channel 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
6.1.2.2.2 Channel 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
6.1.2.3 Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
6.1.3 Brake Force Acquisition Channels Test . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
6.1.3.2 Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
6.1.3.2.1 Channel 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
6.1.3.2.2 Channel 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
6.1.3.3 Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
6.1.4 Analog Speed Reference Output Channels Test . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
6.2 Brake Test . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
6.2.1 Materials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
6.2.2 Test Application . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
6.2.3 Full Stop Test . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
6.2.4 Full Stop Tests Results and Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
6.2.5 Frequency Inverter Analog Input Test . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
6.2.5.1 Analog Output Duty Cycle Tests . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
6.2.5.2 Results and Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
6.2.6 Vibration Testes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
6.2.7 Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
6.2.7.1 Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
7 CONCLUSIONS AND FUTURE ENDAVOURS . . . . . . . . . . . . 107

7.1 Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
7.2 Future Endavours . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
REFERENCES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
25
1 Introduction
With the advancement of technology, cars are leaving the factory each time with
more power and affordable prices. In 1995 the best-selling car in Brazil (HERNANDES,
2017), (Volkswagen Gol Plus 1.0), had 49.8hp of maximum power and brand-new would
accelerate from nought to 100kph in 22.4 seconds (CNW, 2017b). On the other hand, the
sales champion of 2015 ,Volkswagen Gol 1.0, had 76hp of maximum power and could do
the same task in 13.3 seconds (CNW, 2017a), almost half the time from the previous.
Interesting fact is that even though the latter is 20 years younger, both cars have similar
brake systems: disk brakes in the front wheels and drum ones in the back. This enhance-
ment on vehicle accelerations naturally imply on higher top speeds, which should lead to
a bigger concern in brake systems effectiveness.
During the development of any solution or enhancement on any technology or
product, testing is fundamental. In the matter of brake systems, the fact stated on the
previous sentence can also be considered true. On the process of developing more effective
brake systems, it is important to perform brake tests.
Although brake tests are so important (ABENDROTH, 1985), performing this
tests with full scale vehicles are obviously expensive and this somehow makes extensive
testing unfeasible. Also the time required for each test might be a constrain. The automo-
tive industry has being using testbenchs and controlled environments in order to provide
relevant and reliable information about quality and performance of automotive systems
with lower costs and reduced testing time. Small scale tests do not have the purpose of
fully replacing full scale ones, but the savings in costs and time that they could provide can
be used for mass testing, and this can already somehow show their utility and relevance
(GARDINALLI, 2005).
Evaluating the brake efficiency of a vehicle as a whole, involves a lot of factors, a
small scale test plataform will not provide results that could be used to fully address the
quality of a car break system, instead, it is possible to focus the results on the performance
of individual componentes of the system such as pads, disks and calipers (HALDERMAN;
MITCHELL, 2016), and evaluating the performance of this components is a good start
for evaluating the braking capacity of a brake system.
Government and legal authorities have been creating strict regulations for manu-
factures to follow in order to ensure that cars have a higher standard of safety. Braking
tests have been regulated for some time. An international standard for brake testing is
the regulation SAE J2522 (SAE, 2016), which supplies a description of how break tests
should be conducted for systems used in low weight passengers cars. The brake system
26 Chapter 1 Introduction
is a critical part of an automobile, thanks to this system it is possible to use the latter
under safe conditions both in urban and rural areas. There are some ideal requirements
that a brake system should be able to attend (KAWAGUCHI, 2005):
∙ Reduce the speed of a moving vehicle, increasing the deceleration of the same.
∙ Stop the vehicle completely.
∙ Maintain the vehicle speed, preventing unwanted acceleration in downhill paths.
∙ Keep the vehicle motionless while it is parked.
Another point of view should also be considered during this analysis, the manu-
facturers point of view. More effective brake systems means more research and probably
more expensive materials, generating more cost to manufacturers and consequently more
cost to customers. Theoretically this would meant that manufacturers need to balance the
trade-off between quality and cost. However, the point in which this trade-off is setted is
determined by government regulations. Moreover if there was no general regulations each
car manufecturer would have a standard that they judge is sufficient. In Brazil, according
to Resolution N.519 (CONTRAN, 2015) from the National Traffic Council (CONTRAN -
Conselho Nacional de Trânsito), the minimal requirements of perfomance of brake systems
from any vehicle with 750kg or less should meet the following regulations from Brazilian
Association of Technical Standards (ABNT - Associação Brasileira de Normas Técnicas):
NBR 10966-1, NBR 10966-2, NBR 10966-3, NBR 10966-4, NBR 10966-5, NBR 10966-
6, NBR 10966-7 and NBR 16068. Most of these regulations are based in the european
regulation ECE-13/05.
Considering the importance of regulatory standards, the need for brake tests be-
comes even more evident as it is mandatory to ensure that brake-systems will attend
to regulations requirements. Only with extensive testing it is possible to ensure that a
particular system will attend to all standards regarding it’s category of operation.
Making all these considerations, a Break-Testbench can be a useful device for the
automotive industry and research. Considering that this asset would be able to simu-
late similar environmental and operational conditions that a brake system is submitted,
this testbench could allow manufactures and suppliers to avoid expenses in field tests as
they would be able to test different parts of the system in an assisted and controlled
evironments.
1.1 Purpose of the project

The purpose of this project is to develop, implement and test an electronic ins-
trument system for monitoring and controlling a small scale brake-testbench based on
1.2. Text Structure 27
the information from the internationl regulation SAE J2522 (SAE, 2016). The system
should be able to perform brake tests by controlling the mechanical parts while acquiring
relevant data with the aid of sensors and transducers.
1.2 Text Structure

The rest of this thesys was divided on chapters briefly explained bellow.
Chapter 2, Literature Review: This chapter will explore some concepts and
aspects of engineering and of brake tests that are considered fundamental to following
parts of this paper.
Chapter 3, Methodology: This is the where the strategy for developing this
paper and the engineering solutions it proposes are dicussed.
Chapter 4, Acquisition and Control System: On this chapter, the problem
this project aims to solve, will be defined in a specific way and the project requirements,
both from hardware and software will be enumerated. Also, based on this requirements
the parameters and the proposed solutions will be discussed.
Chapter 5, Experimental Tests: As the title already states, this chapter will
deal with the experimental tests needed to validate the developed solution.
Chapter 6, Conclusions and Future Endavours: This chapter is debate
among the possible conclusions that can be made after the development of this project
and will also deal with the possible improvements and uses for the development solution.
29
2 Literature Review
2.1 Working principles of disk brake systems

In general terms, a disc break can be summarized as a type of brake that uses
calipers to squeeze pairs of pads against a disc coupled to a shaft in order to create
friction. This generated friction ought to retard the rotation of this shaft coupled to the
disk. A moving car, or being more specific, a rotating shaft has a certain amount of kinetic
energy, the brakes of a car are designed to convert this kinetic energy to heat (through
friction) in order to decelerate the car (LIMPERT, 1999). Figure 1 shows a typical disk
break scheme.
Figure 1 – Schematic for disk brake systems (NICE, 2017)
As Figure 1 shows, some of the main components of a typical disk brake system
and their respective functions are (CARPARTS, 2018):
∙ Caliper: Fits over the rotor like a clamp, houses the pads and pistons. This part
does not tend to wear out quickly, usually, damages on this part are caused by using
outworn pads or disks (GOODYEAR, 2018).
∙ Pads: There are two brake pads on each caliper, this is the part that is effectively in
contact with the disk. Pads are used in order to prevent disk wear and caliper wear,
30 Chapter 2 Literature Review
this parts are made with specific materials that provide better perfomance, hence
more friction with less dissipated heat. Pads tend to wear out quickly in a vehicle
and should be checked and replaced quite often.
∙ Piston: Most of brake discs are activated through a hydraulic mechanism, when the
break pedal is pressed the brake fluid goes to the piston and the piston squeezes the
to brake pads against the disk.
∙ Rotor: The disk rotor is the main component of the system, it is directly connected to
the wheel’s shaft. The rotor wears with time, if break pads are replaced accordingly
the rotor tends to last more than the pads. Usually a vehicle will undergo more than
one brake pads replacement before having its disks replaced.
2.2 The SAE J2522 regulation

More related to this project is the SAE J2522, entitled Dynamometer Global Brake
Effectiveness, at the beggining it already states the it’s utility with the following:
“The SAE Brake Dynamometer Test Code Standards Committee considers this
standar useful in supporting the technological efforts intended to improve motor vehicle
braking systems overall performance and safety”
This regulation (SAE, 2003) was developed to be used in conjecture with other test
standards in other to address the friction of a certain material to check it’s adequacy for a
certain application. It is important to mention that this work is based on the SAE J2522,
it is not a faithful application of the standard though. This paper is more concerned about
the settings of the tests mentioned on the regulation rather than the formulas and criteria
for a materials engineering analysis.
All the tests mentioned on the regulation can generalised on repetitive cycles of
accelerating the rotor to a specified speed and appling brake force (may vary along the
test) until the rotor reaches a lower limit of speed. On the regulation, sometimes the
desacceleration ratio is also defined but not always. Initial temperature is also defined,
some tests can only be perfomed if the brake parts are under a certain temperature.
2.2.1 Monitored Parameters

According to Regulation SAE J2522 (SAE, 2003), in order to perform the brake
tests specified it is mandatory to evaluate the following parameters:
∙ Temperature of the brake pads: It is important during the entire test to be fully
aware of the temperature of the brake system, firstly by the safety factor (there is
a maximum operating temperature for the system), also by the wear of the system
2.2. The SAE J2522 regulation 31
that is tied to the temperature therein. Last but not least is the fact that knowing
the temperature it is possible to carry out tests based on it, being possible to make
tests in known temperature ranges.
∙ Braking force: The pressure to be measured is the pressure that the brake caliper is
applying to the rotor over time, knowing the magnitude of this force means having
control over how much the temperature increases according to braking and how
much the rotor speed decreases as a function of braking.
∙ Rotation Speed: Without knowledge of rotor speed it would be impossible to deter-

mine whether the brake is being effective or how effective it is. Speed monitoring is
the most critical parameter for system operation, without it there is no utility to
the rest of the equipment.
Another interesting parameter to monitor that is not specified on Regulation SAE

J2522 is the vibration on the caliper, usually when the magnitude of this vibration is
considerably high it usually indicates that this part is already worn out (GOODYEAR,
2018) and it may damage the rotor by bending it over time. Is is also relevant to mention
that vibration is measured in terms of g (9.8 𝑚 · 𝑠2 ).
2.2.2 Brake Tests

All tests specified on the regulation follow a certain pattern of execution order
which is synthesized in Figure 2.
Figure 2 – Brake Tests Diagram of Execution
The system is accelerated to a top speed (Upper Speed Limit), than the brake
actuates with a known force (Brake Force) until the system reaches a certain speed
(Lower Speed Limit), this process is repeated for certain number of times (Snubs)
and after each test the system must rest (Cooldown) until the brakes are cooled enough
regarding a defined cooldown time.
2.3 Review of basic Electronic Sensors, Devices and Concepts Re-

levant to this thesys
2.3.1 Rotation Measurement

As it was specified in Item 2.2.1 from Section 2.2.1, monitoring the rotor speed
is mandatory in order to perform brake tests. There are many different ways to measure
speed in rotors and shafts. On the automotive environment this measurements are usually
done by using magnetic sensors.
The name used for the sensor in the automotive environment is Crankshaft Po-
sition Sensor (CKP), it has this name because most of the time this sensor is mounted
aligned with the crankshaft and is used to monitor both the speed and the position of the
crankshaft. A typical CKP sensor is shown in Figure 3.
Figure 3 – Crankshaft Position Sensor (REMAN, 2016)
This sensor is widely used in the automotive industry to determine the angular
position of the vehicle’s crankshaft and its rotation speed. There are several types of CKP
sensors, the most common are the variable reluctance type because they have low cost
and good accuracy (SCHROEDER, 2002).
As the gear in question rotates each tooth of the gear aligns with the variable
reluctance sensor, a magnetic flux in the sensor coil changes as the air gap between the
sensor and the gear changes. This change in the magnetic field generates induces a voltage
at the sensor output. This type of sensors have an analog voltage output where amplitude
and frequency vary proportionally to the speed of rotation of a gear, as Figure 4. With
this type of sensor it is possible to extract data of linear velocity, angular velocity and
2.3. Review of basic Electronic Sensors, Devices and Concepts Relevant to this thesys 33
angular position. However, only the angular velocity data (frequency) is important to be
measured for brake tests specified by the regulation (SAE, 2003).
Figure 4 – Magnetic Sensor Signal (PETROLHEAD GARAGE, 2014)
2.3.2 Temperature Measurement

As it was explained in Section 2.1, from a physics point of view a brake can be seem
as a device to convert cinetic energy into themal energy (heat). Whereas, considering this
fact it is possible to address that the performance of a break system is therefore directly
related to the variation of temperature during braking. Moreover, as it was explained in
Item 2.2.1 from Section 2.2.1,SAE J2522 (SAE, 2003) especifies that it is mandatory to
measure temperature in order to perform brake tests.
According to (GUMS, 2018), the four main types of temperature transducers are:
Thermocouples, RTDs (Resistance Temperature Detectors), Thermistors and Semicon-
ductor based ICs. It is stated by (NEWTON, 2016) that brake pads from production
passenger cars operate at the temperature range from 100∘ C to 650∘ C. Among the most
common type of temperature transducers, thermocouples operate across the widest tem-
perature range, from -200 ∘ C to 1750 ∘ C (AMETHERM, 2018). Moreover, regulation SAE
J2522 (SAE, 2003) states that temperature measurements for performing specified brake
tests should be done with a Thermocouple. Taking the sum of all this facts, thermocouples
seems to be the reasonable choice for this kind of application.
A thermocouple is a device that has this junction of two different metals and has
a known voltage generated output proportional to the heat tranfer on the junction. In
theory any combination of two different metals could be used, but there are standardized
combinations that produces more stable and predictable voltage outputs (POLLOCK,
1991). This relation between heat transfer and voltage is known not to be linear as Figure
5 shows (E,J,K,T,R,S and B are designators for normalized thermocouples junction types).
Figure 5 – Thermocouple characteristic voltage output (BOJORGE, 2014)
Thermocouple actually have two junctions, a hot junction (the one that is sub-
mitted to heat transfers) and a cold junction (also called reference junction). What the
thermocouple really measures is the difference between the temperature of this two junc-
tions, this means that in a hypothetical situation which the hot junction is submmited
to a 100∘ C and the cold junction is submitted to an environmental temperature of 25∘ C,
after thermal equilibrium is reached the thermocouple voltage will be proportional to
a temperature of 75∘ C. Hence the thermocouple will only produce a r̈ealöutput voltage
when the cold junction is submitted to a 0∘ C (in some calibrations procedures the cold
junction is actually submitted to 0∘ C) (KINZIE; RUBIN, 1973).
Figure 6 – Thermocouple Measurement (ECIL, 2016)
There is a wide range of thermocouples available, table 1 shows the most common
thermocouples and there temperature range.
Table 1 – Thermocouples and their operation ranges
Thermocouple Type Range of Operation (∘ C)

J 0 a 750
K -200 a 1250
E -200 a 900
T -250 a 350
2.3.3 Brake Force Measurement

Brake pressure can be interpreted as the force that the brake system applies to
the disc in a distributed way along the area of the pads. Considering this, in other to find
out the break pressure the force applied to the calipers must be measured.
Force tranducers can be defined as devices that converts a signal from one physical
form to a corresponding signal having a different physical form (PALLÃ; WEBSTER et
al., 2012) and they are used with instrumentation of varying complexity. One of the many
force transducers is the load cell, they are devices formed by strain gauges which their
electrical resistance varies proportionally to their distension. Distension is a quantification
of the deformation of a body, it can also be defined as a fractional change of the body of
a body. Distension may be negative (compression) or positive (traction).
Figure 7 – Distension (INSTRUMENTS, 2016a)
Generally, the length variation in a strain gauge is very small and this makes them
very susceptible to measurement errors. As a result, the use of a Wheatstone bridge is
very common, it is formed by four resistive arms and an excitation voltage applied to the
bridge (WINDOW; HOLISTER et al., 1982).
Figure 8 – Wheatstone bridge (INSTRUMENTS, 2016b)
The voltage output 𝑉𝑂 can be obtained from the Equation 2.1, 𝑉𝑂 the load cell
signal output is a differential pair signal.
𝑅3 𝑅2
𝑉𝑂 = − (2.1)
𝑅3 + 𝑅4 𝑅1 + 𝑅2
According to (DILLON; GRIFFEN; WEIHS, 1989) the main advantages and draw-
backs of Load Cells are:
∙ Accuracy: usually less than 0.1%.
∙ Rigid in Construction: it is extremely resistant to impact and to any mechanical

stress.
∙ Calibration: load cells are usually already calibrated by manufacturers and vendors.
∙ Size and Weight: load cells are bigger and heavier than most force transducers, for
applications where size and weight is an important requirement they may not be
suitable.
Taking all this characteristics into concern the load cell is the most suitable trans-
ducer for an automotive test environment.
2.3.4 Vibration Measurement

Even though measuring vibration is not mandatory in order to perform break tests,
it can provide valuable data in order to address the wear of the caliper of a disc break,
and as excessive vibration can stress the rotor enough to cause it to bend (as explained
in Section 2.2.1).
A body is said to vibrate when it describes an oscillatory movement around a

reference point (FERNANDES, 2000). For the measurement of vibration in machines it
is more common the measurement of the acceleration as a function of g (9.8𝑚/𝑠2 ). The
same is measured as a function of g as a function of Einstein’s Principle of Equivalence,
where the acceleration of a reference data is not distinguishable from the gravitational
action on it (JR, 1968).
Accelerometers are sensors that measure acceleration itself, that is, the acceleration
that the sensor itself is subjected to. Accelerometers are widely used in the automotive
industry, initially only in the Air Bag system and currently even for vehicle stability
control.
Currently the most common accelerometers are those based on the piezoelectric
effect, this effect describes the variation of electrostatic force or electric voltage in a
material when subjected to a force.
Figure 9 – Piezo Accelerometer (UK, 2016)
By measuring this variation of electrostatic force or electrical voltage it is possible

to determine the acceleration that the sensor has undergone. Figure 9 shows that there is
a mass in the piezoelectric material, so when the sensor is submitted to some movement,
based on the principle of inertia the mass will exert a force of traction or compression
which will generate a voltage variation at the sensor output (PATRICK, 2007).
2.3.5 Instrumentation Amplifier

In general, sensors and tranducers have very low voltage output levels (specially
passive transducers), and therefore an amplification is fundamental. The most commonly
used amplifier circuit in instrumentation engineering is the common joint differential am-
plifier more commonly refered as Instrumentation Amplifier (Figure 10), which is very
stable and significantly reduces the output signal noise (WAIT; HUELSMAN; KORN,
1975).
Figure 10 – Instrumentation Amplifier (CIRCUITS, 2016)
The instrumentation amplifier has two stages, the first stage consists in amplifying
both inputs of a sensor, with the gain of this amplification stage controlled by 𝑅𝑔𝑎𝑖𝑛 in
Figure 10. The second stage consists in taking the difference of the two input signals. If the
differentiation appears before the amplification, noise may be so huge in the input signals
that some signal information might be lost. In the instrumentation amplifier noise and
signal is amplified on the first stage, considering that the noise is similar in both inputs
the differential stage will take out the noise and only output the difference between both
inputs. One advantage of this amplifier is that it has high input impedances, that means
it will not drain significant current from the signal, i.e., it will not interfere with the
measure (THOMSEN et al., 2003). Another advantage is that the gain of this amplifier
can be adjusted with just one resistor (METTINGVANRIJN; PEPER; GRIMBERGEN,
1994).
The gain of the instrumentation amplifier is given by the following 2.3.5 (COUNTS;
KITCHEN, 2006).
(︃ )︃
2·𝑅
𝑉 𝑜𝑢𝑡 = (𝑉2 − 𝑉1 ) · 1 + (2.2)
𝑅𝑔𝑎𝑖𝑛
Something interesting to notice is that if we take out the 𝑅𝑔𝑎𝑖𝑛 (open load), the gain
of the amplifier is equal to one. Besides this advantageous behavior of the instrumentation
amplifier, it is quite hard to make it work with discrete components assembly because
of components imprecision. Hence, it is more practical to work with ICs that ensures
symmetry of between those components. As an example, there is the Texas Instruments
INA118 (INSTRUMENTS, 2000b), which is one of many encapsulated solutions for the
instrumentation amplifier, the schematic of this component is shown in Figure 11.
2.3.5.1 Important features to consider in an amplifier
There are some important factors when choosing an OPAMP in a certain applica-
tion, according to (INC.(NORWOOD, 2011), some of the important features to know in
Figure 11 – INA 118 (INSTRUMENTS, 2000a)
an amplifier are:
∙ Common-Mode Voltage Range (CMVR): Allowable input voltage range at both

inputs before clipping or excessive nonlinearity.
∙ Common-Mode Rejection Ratio (CMRR): The ratio of common-mode voltage range

(CMVR) to the change in the input offset voltage over this range, expressed in dB.
∙ Gain Badwidth Product (GBW): The product of open-loop and bandwidth at a

specific frequency.
∙ Input Bias Current (𝐼𝐵 ): The current at the input terminals.
∙ Operating Supply Voltage Range: The supply voltage range that can be applied to an
amplifier for which it operates within specifications. Many applications implement
op amp circuits with balanced dual supplies, while other applications for energy
conservation or other reasons, use single-supply.
∙ Supply Current: The current required from the supply voltage to operate the am-
plifier with no load.
2.3.6 System Controlling

In order to automate break tests a system block that should be able to interface
both sensor signals and user commands to the system is needed. Summarizing, this block
should be responsible to handle the interface between the electric signals and higher level
user instructions.
At the design of this block of the solution an important thing should be considered,
data acquisition. According to (NATIONAL INSTRUMENTS, 2018) DAQ (Data Acqui-
sition) can be defined as the process of measuring an electric or physical phenomenon,
such as voltage, current, temperature, pressure or sound.
As mentioned in Section 1.1: "The system should be able to perform brake tests by
controlling the mechanical parts while acquiring relevant data with the aid of sensors and
transducers". There is a type of device that is able to perform data acquisition and system
control, the microcontroller.
2.3.6.1 Microcontroller basic characteristics
A microcontroller is a compact computer on a single integrated circuit chip, in

most cases a microcontroller (also refered by the acronym MCU) includes a processor,
volatile and non-volatile memory, input/output ports and other peripherals. The great
thing about the microcontrollers is their low cost, many small appliances that does not
require a powerful hardware are only economically viable because of those devices. The
components a microcontroller has may vary, it is a responsability of the project designer
to decide the microcontroller that has the best fit (technically and economically) for the
project.
Microcontrollers differ from microprocessors only in one thing, MCUs can be used
standalone while microprocessors need other peripherals to be used. By reducing the
size and cost compared to a design that uses a separate microprocessor, memory, and in-
put/output devices, microcontrollers make it economical to digitally control even more de-
vices and processes. “A microprocessor can be considered the heart of a computer system,
whereas a microcontroller can be considered the heart of an embedded system”(ROUSE,
2012).
A great thing about microcontrollers is that they can provide real-time response to
events, so for instrumentation they are crucial. With them it is possible to acquire signals
with good sampling rates without loss of relevant information (BARTZ; ZHAKSILIKOV;
OGAMI, 2004).
2.3.6.2 Microcontroller Architecture and Most Important Parts
In order to understand how a typical MCU parts are, Figure 12 show the block
diagram of the ATmega32U4, a MCU manufactured by Microchip.
The most important blocks of this device are:
∙ Timing and Control: This circuit block represents the part of MCU responsible for
maintaing the clock signals and handle time events.
Figure 12 – ATmega16/32U4 Block Diagram (ATMEL, 2018)
∙ Program Flash: This is a non-volatile memory used to store the code, MCUs can
execute code directly from the flash memory.
∙ Port Drivers: This are the device I/Os (inputs/outputs), they can be digital or
analog ports (execpt for outputs which can only be digital).
∙ ADC (Analogic to Digital Converter): MCUs are by nature digital devices, when
acquiring an analog signal, they first make a conversion to a digital value and then
copy this data to a register.
∙ USB 2.0 : Although not being a common feature, some MCUs include an USB (Uni-
versal Serial Bus) port. When interfacing with other USB devices, already having
this feature inside the MCU saves space and costs when integrating the MCU in a
circuit board.
∙ High Speed Timer/PWM : As mentioned in Item 2.3.6.2, some MCUs do not have
analog outputs, the high speed is used to generate a special digital output signal
which will be explained on Section 2.3.6.3.
2.3.6.3 Pulse Width Modulation
Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) is a way of modulation for encoding information

on a digital pulse train signal. There are many ways of encoding and extracting this
message in and out of the PWM signal and this type of modulation can be used for
a wide varriety of applications such as controlling the charge delivered to a load and
transmitting information (STANDARD, 1996). PWM signals have a fixed high and a
fixed low voltage level, there are two parameters that can be varried on a PWM signal:
oscilation frequency and duty cycle. Figure 13 shows how a the duty cycle affects a PWM
signal.
Figure 13 – Duty Cycle Examples (DEE, 2016)
Duty cycle can be defined mathematically by the Equation 2.3 (JAMES, 2001),
where 𝐷% is the duty cycle in percentage, PW is the pulse width (pulse active time) and
T is the wave period.
𝑃𝑊
𝐷(%) = (2.3)
𝑇
One useful way of using a PWM duty cycle variation is by enconding an analog vol-
tage level proportional into it’s percentage (HOLMES; LIPO, 2003), meaning that 100%
duty cycle would represent maximum voltage amplitude and 0% the minimum voltage.
This means it is possible to extract an analog voltage level by taking a PWM average
level (ALTER, 2008), this is a practical way for designing digital to analog converters.
2.3.7 Circuit Protection

An important feature of any electronic product/appliance is the immunity against
undesired voltage transients. In DAQ systems this is a relevant issue, the inputs of this
systems must be protected from possible damage that may be caused by unintentional/ac-
cidental high voltage inputs, surges, etc (MATHIVANAN, 2007).
According to (LITTLELFUSE, 2015b), Voltage Transients are defined as short
duration surges of electrical energy and are the result of the sudden release of energy
previously stored or induced by other means. There are many things that can cause
voltage transients (commonly refered just by transients) and those can be divided in two
groups:
∙ Repeatable Transients: Usually caused by the operation of inductive loads such as

motors, generators and swichting circuits.
∙ Random Transients: Uncorrelated transients generated by exclusive events such as

lightning, ESD and unpredictable events.
In order to enhance energy efficiency, devices are now operating at lower voltages
(SOUZA et al., 2017). With the miniaturization of electronic components, those have
become even more sensitive to electrical stress (LITTLELFUSE, 2015b).
In automotive environment, many of the supporting electrical components of the
vehicle can generate transients, specially from inductive load switching. When the induc-
tive load is switched off, the collapsing magnetic field is converted into electrical energy
that turns into a transient (LITTLELFUSE, 2015b).
2.3.7.1 Low Pass Filters
According to (LITTLELFUSE, 2015b), an ESD pulse (fastest common transient

pulse) has an overall duration period of less than 100ns (50% of the peak value) and
a rising time that lasts less than 1.2𝜇s. Figure 14 shows an example of an ESD Test
Waveform.
Figure 14 – ESD Test Waveform (LITTLELFUSE, 2015a)

Considering that a signal has a frequency that is lower than the frequency of the
transient it is vulnerable to, using a low pass filter to provide suitable attenuation for that
transient and still letting the signal frequency on the passaband, it is possible to protect
that part of the circuit against this particular transient (STANDLER, 1988).
2.3.7.2 Transient Voltage Supression Diodes (TVS)
2.3.7.2.1 TVS diodes principle of operation
Transient Voltage Supression Diodes or TVS Diodes are the most popular choice
for protection components in circuit due to their fast response, low clamping voltage and
longevity. Under normal operation TVS diodes are high-impedance devices, interacting
as an open circuit to the protected component, during a transient event the TVS diode
junction provides a low-impedance path for the transient current (RENESAS, 2016a).
There are both uni-directional and bi-directional, the first has an operation curve
similar as the one from a Zener diode, during positive transients the device limits the input
voltage to it’s clamping voltage and during negative transients the spike is clamped to
the diode drop. On the other hand, bi-directional TVS diodes are always reverse biased
during both negative and positive transients. Figures 15 and 16 show respectively the
action of an uni-directional TVS and a bi-directional TVS during transient events.
Figure 15 – Campling action of an uni-directional TVS (RENESAS, 2016c)
Figure 16 – Campling action of a bi-directional TVS (RENESAS, 2016b)
The Voltage X Current curve of both uni-directional and bi-directional TVS diodes
can be seen repectively on Figures 17 and 18.
Figure 17 – V X I characteristic of an uni-directional TVS (RENESAS, 2016e)
Figure 18 – V X I characteristic of a bi-directional TVS (RENESAS, 2016d)
2.3.7.2.2 Selecting TVS Diodes
According to (WALTERS, 2016), the following parameters of TVS devices are

important to consider in order to choose one for protecting a particular circuit net:
∙ 𝑉𝐶 (Campling Voltage): the voltage limit that the TVS will allow on the point of
intended protection. This voltage should be slightly lower than the point of intended
protection absolute maximum voltage rating.
∙ V𝑊 𝑀 (Rated Standoff Voltage): this is the maximum voltage in which the TVS still
works as a high-impedance device. Therefore, the first step when selecting a TVS
device is to know the peak voltage at the point of intended protection during normal
operation and then select a TVS device with an appropriate 𝑉𝑊 𝑀 .
∙ P𝑃 𝑃 (Peak Pulse Power): in order to ensure the durability of the TVS device, the
maximum power it needs to dissipate should be known. This P𝑃 𝑃 is calculated
by multipling the TVS device 𝑉𝐶 (Clamping Voltage) and the 𝐼𝑃 𝑃 (Peak Impulse
Current, peak current for the transient event).
47
3 Methodology
In other to achieve the goals of this project the endeavours were divided into three
3.1 Literature Review

This stage can be considered the most important of the whole project because it
layers the foundations for development of all that follows. This stage comprehended the
knowledge needed in all further stages and steps of the project, even on the further stages
of development it was necessary to review some of the information acquired on this part
in other to achieve best results. On the Literature Review stage, concepts, components
and other necessary information to make the foundations for the project were addressed.
For instance it will be on this stage that the brake tests parameters and requirements will
be analysed in order to choose the proper solutions for this project.
3.2 Problem Description

This particular stage consisted on the depuration of the problem in question,
leading to a study of the requirements that were necessary to ensure in other to develop
and execute the project.
3.3 Project Conception

After a deep problem analysis it was possible to address a more detailed solution
description, in this stage the general solution was splitted in many smaller ones that
were defined according to the requirements of the previous stage. All this solutions were
focused in functionality, this is a project of electronic instrumentation, so the goal was
not to develop electrical/electronic solutions from the beggining, it was evaluating the
requirements and finding a group of components/solutions that combined in a particular
and unique way could lead to this project achieving it’s goals.
3.4 Case Study

After the particular and smaller solutions are developed, tested and considered
functional, the general solution of this project will be tested as a whole thing. This being
doing a brake test that is capable of proving the functionality and usability of the deve-
loped technology.
49
4 Acquisition and Control System
4.1 Monitored Parameters

As metioned before this work will be based in the SAE J2522 regulations, this
regulation says that to evaluate the efficiency of a brake system it is mandatory to monitor
temperature on the brake pads, the pressure applied on the disk and the speed of the
rotor throughout all the process. Monitoring the vibration is not mandatory but has
some advantages.
∙ Temperature of brake pads: During all test it is mandatory to have full knowledge
of the temperature of the break pads, firstly because of security reasons (there is
upper limit for temperature in any system) and also because of the wear of parts
that is related to temperature.
∙ Pressure applied on the disks: Knowing the magnitude of this force means being
able to relate the pressure applied and the deceleration, knowing how the pressure
applied increases the temperature of the pads and evaluate how this promotes wear
of the parts.
∙ Rotation speed: Without knowing how the speed of the rotor varies over time it
would be impossible to determine the acceleration and deceleration rates among
many other issues.
∙ Vibration: As mentioned before this is not mandatory but rather interesting, mea-
suring vibration makes it possible to determine how the extensive use can wear out
the parts and reduce stiffness among other properties. Also it is natural that the
system will vibrate during braking, minimal vibration or too much vibration can
indicate a fault that on the future could damage the system.
4.2 Functional Requirements of the Testbench

According to the specification of the SAE J2522 and according to parameters
considered to be important, some requirements for the testbench were defined.
1. Measure a braking force up to 250kgf.
2. Measure temperatures up to 600 ∘ C
3. Measure temperatures with a minimal resolution of 7.5 ∘ C.

50 Chapter 4 Acquisition and Control System
4. Accelerate the rotor to a speed up to 600 RPMs.
5. System most have a sampling period of 50ms.
6. The system hardware most be able to operate under temperatures up to 40∘ C.
7. System must have two acquisition channels for temperature.
8. System must have a channel for braking force acquisition.
9. System must have two digital outputs to control relays.
10. System must have a channel for acquiring frequency.
11. The system must work with real time acquisition.
Also some other optional requirements were created for making the system more
versatile for future tests, thoose being:
∙ Having an additional braking force acquisition channel.
∙ Having an additional output digital channel.
∙ Having three digital input channels.
∙ Having two analog outputs.
∙ Having a vibration acquisition channel
∙ Having a built-in USB to UART transceiver to make the system more practical to
use.
∙ System being easily reprogrammable.
4.3 Problem Analysis

The project solution can be divided in the structure showed in Figure 19.
4.3.1 Brake System Simulator

The Brake System Simulator block as the name says comprehends the hardware
responsible for simulating the braking system operations, the two basic components are
the Brake component itself (in this case being a disc brake system and peripherals) and
an Electric Motor to accelerate the rotor in order to simulate the speed a vehicle wheel
might be submitted. A Transducers/Sensors block was also added, without acquiring
a physical/mechanical quantities such as temperature and pressure, a brake test would
4.3. Problem Analysis 51
Figure 19 – Project Problem Depuration
be useless because no possible technical analysis could be done afterwards. The Trans-
ducers/Sensors block was placed within the Brake System Simulator block because the
sensors and transducers will be placed arround the components of this major block.
4.3.2 Higher Layer Hardware

This layer needs to do all the heavy data processing, i.e., converting and dealing
with the information that flows through all the structure. The GUI block is the one
responsible for acquiring and displaying computer information in a HMI (Human Machine
Interface). Although developing this part of the solution is not part of this thesys it it
important to understand its importance.
4.3.3 Lower Layer Hardware

This layer of hardware will make the translation from physical/mechanical quan-
tities to computer data and vice versa, i.e., converting physical/mechanical quantities to
voltage and than to bytes of information and also on the opposite way (bytes to voltage
and voltage to physical/mechanical quantities). Tranducers signals are not always ready
to read, as mentioned in Section 2.3.5, Instrumentation Engineering also involves doing
Signal Conditioning to amplify and filter this signals. Controlling the system also involves
designing circuits to generate the desired digital and analog output channels.
Based on the matters analysed on the previous sections of this work a hardware
architecture was defined and it displayed on the following Figure 20.
Figure 20 – Hardware Project Architecture
It is possible to see that each type of transducer will have a specific circuit in order
to perform signal conditioning as better as possible according to the type of transducer
parameters. Also it is possible to see that there will be special circuits to interface the
MCU with digital outputs and inputs alongside with analog outputs. Regarding the analog
outputs, it is also interesting to have a feedback path to the MCU so adjustments can
be made in order to guarantee that the analog outputs voltages are correct according to
the desired quantities. Moreover, a power supply block should be designed to generate a
stabilized voltage to power up all the circuit modules. Last but not least, a communication
port (USB) was placed, through this port the communication with the upper layer of
hardware will be done.
4.3.3.1 Lower Level Hardware Interfaces
Based on the previous considerations and considering possible future usages for
the designed product, this are the following hardware interfaces.
∙ Sensor Inputs:
– Speed Sensor.
– Temperature Sensor 1.
4.4. Rotation Acquisition Channel 53
– Temperature Sensor 2.
– Brake Force Sensor 1.
– Brake Force Sensor 2.
– Vibration Sensor 1.
∙ Digital Interfaces:
– Output 1.
– Output 2.
– Output 3.
– Input 1.
– Input 2.
– Input 3.
∙ Analog Outputs:
– Output 1.
– Output 2.
∙ Communication Ports:
– USB Port 1.
4.4 Rotation Acquisition Channel

4.4.1 CKP Signal Conditioning
As mentioned in Section 2.3.1, a CKP sensor has an analog signal with variable
amplitude. For this project the only important parameter to retrieve from the sensor
output signal in order to obtain the wheel speed is its frequency (angular velocity). The
most practical way to obtain this data is to use a tachometer interface circuit, for this
project the LM2907 from Texas Instruments (TEXAS INSTRUMENTS, 2000) will be
used. LM2907 is a frequency-to-voltage converter with a ground-referenced tachometer
input with ±28V maximum voltage, making it versatile for many different sensor models.
4.4.1.1 LM2907 Basic Tachometer Circuit
The conditioning circuit for this project was based on the Minimum Component
Tachometer Diagram from Figure 21 and Tachometer with Adjustable Zero Speed Voltage
Output suggested by LM2907 datasheet (TEXAS INSTRUMENTS, 2000) on the Typical
Applications part.
Figure 21 – Minimum Component Tachometer Diagram (TEXAS INSTRUMENTS,

2000)
Figure 22 – Tachometer with Adjustable Zero Speed Voltage Output, adapted from (TE-
XAS INSTRUMETS, 2018)
According to the datasheet (TEXAS INSTRUMENTS, 2000), in order to configure

the gain of the frequency-to-voltage converter, C1, R1 and C2 must configured in respect
to the following design requirements.
∙ C1: This capacitor is charged and discharged every cycle by a 180𝜇A typical cur-
rent source. C1 must not be sized lower than 500-pF due to its role in internal
compensation.
∙ R1: Higher of R1 values increase the output voltage for a given frequency, but
too large will degrade the output’s linearity. Because the current pulses are a fixed
magnitude of 180 𝜇A typical, R1 must be high enough to produce the maximum
desired output voltage at maximum input frequency. At maximum input frequency
the pulse train duty cycle is 100%, therefore the average current is 180 𝜇A and R1
= Vo(max) / 180 𝜇A.
∙ C2: This capacitor filters the ripple produced by the current pulses sourced by
the charge pump. Large values reduce the output voltage ripple but increase the
output’s response time to changes in input frequency.
The output voltage (𝑉𝑂 ) can be calculated using Equation 4.1, 𝑉𝐶𝐶 is the supply
voltage and 𝑓𝐼𝑁 the input frequency.
𝑉𝑂 = 𝑉𝑅𝐸𝐹 + (𝑉𝐶𝐶 · 𝑓𝐼𝑁 · 𝐶1 · 𝑅1) (4.1)
As said in Item 4.4.1.1, C2 controls the voltage ripple on the output(𝑉𝑅𝐼𝑃 𝑃 𝐿𝐸 ),

this ripple is given by Equation 4.2. According to the datasheet, 𝐼2 has a typical value of
180uA.
(︃ )︃
𝑉𝐶𝐶 𝐶1 𝑉𝐶𝐶 · 𝑓𝐼𝑁 · 𝐶1
𝑉𝑅𝐼𝑃 𝑃 𝐿𝐸 = · · 1− (4.2)
2 𝐶2 𝐼2
Finally, the last thing to consider is the maximum attainable input frequency,
determined by 𝑉𝐶𝐶 , C1 and 𝐼2 (180uA) in Equation 4.3.
𝐼2
𝑓𝑀 𝐴𝑋 = (4.3)
𝐶1 · 𝑉𝐶𝐶
4.4.1.2 LM2907 Designed Circuit
The first parameter to be calculated is the maximum frequency, functional requi-

rement from Item 4 in Section 4.2 says the the system should be able to reach 200kph.
Hence, to know the relation between frequency and speed on a wheel it’s important to
know the wheel’s diameter.
According to (PNEUS FÁCIL, 2018), the smallest commercial tyre size in terms of
diameter in Brazil is the standard 165/70R13 which has a diameter (D) of 561.2mm and
the one with the biggest diameter (D) is the standard 265/50R20 having 773mm. Using
Equation 4.4 to calculate the overall length of the wheel gives an aproximately length of
1.762m for the smaller tyre and an aproximately length of 2.428m for the bigger one.
𝐶 =𝜋·𝐷 (4.4)
Considering this upper limit speed of 180kph (50 m/s) and the wheel lengths
calculated above (1.762m and 2.2428m) applied it to Equation 4.5:
𝑆𝑝𝑒𝑒𝑑
𝐹 𝑟𝑒𝑞𝑢𝑒𝑛𝑐𝑦 = (4.5)
𝐿𝑒𝑛𝑔𝑡ℎ
We have maximum frequencies of aproximately 28.36Hz (for the smaller tyre stan-
dard (1.762m)) and 20.59Hz (for the bigger tyre standard (2.428m)).
According to (TEXAS INSTRUMENTS, 2000) the input common mode voltage
is equal to 𝑉𝐶𝐶 - 1.5V, and as 𝑉𝐶𝐶 is equal to 5V (check Section 4.11.1.1) the maximum
output voltage 𝑉𝑂 is equal to 3.5V. Considering a safer upper frequency limit of 150Hz
(approximately six times the maximum calculated frequency of 31.52Hz, this multipli-
cation factor will be explained better in Section 6.2.1) applied to Equation 4.1 with the
𝑉𝐶𝐶 = 5𝑉 , the desired offset voltage 𝑉𝑅𝐸𝐹 (1.225V, check Section 4.4.2) and the maximum
output voltage 𝑉𝑂 = 3.5 gives a time constant (R1*C1) of 0.003. Using the recommended
capacitor values from 21 and commercial resistor values it is possible to achieve this time
constant using R1=300kΩ, with this values 𝑉𝑂 can be described by Equation 4.6.
𝑉𝑂 = 1.225𝑉 + 0.015 · 𝑓𝐼𝑁 𝑉 𝐻𝑧 (4.6)
For instance applying the upper frequency value of 28.36Hz calculated previously
will give a 𝑉𝑂 = 1.6504𝑉 .
Figure 23 shows the designed circuit for the speed acquisition channel.
In addition to the components from the circuit Tachometer with Adjustable Zero
Speed Voltage Output on Figure 22, the following features have been added:
∙ TVS Diode: In order to protect the the IC’s input the SMBJ15CA TVS diode
from Littelfuse was added. This diode has a maximum clamping voltage of 24.4V,
the maximum input voltage is ±28V, thus the TVS will help protecting the input
from overvoltages.
Figure 23 – Speed Acquisition Channel Circuit
∙ LPF at the input: As the maximum frequency was determined to be 31.52Hz, it

is possible to filter all the upper frequencies in order to avoid any noise to enter the
circuit. R73 and C41 form a LPF with a cutoff frequency of aproximately 160Hz, as
mentioned in Section 4.4.1.2 the maximum signal frequency is approximately 150Hz.
∙ LPF at the output: R74 and C43 form a LPF to that is used to filter any external
post-conversion noise, it has an aproximate frequency of 16Hz.
∙ R78: This resistor is recommended by (TEXAS INSTRUMENTS, 2000) in order

to use the voltage reference functionality.
4.4.2 1.225V Reference

The 1V2 reference from the circuit of Section 4.4.1 is achieved using the LM4040CYM3-
1.2 from Microchip (MICROCHIP, 2017b). This is a 1.225V precision voltage reference
with a tolerance of ±1.15% and maximum operating output current of 10mA. The only
external component needed is a bias resistor which can be calculated using 4.7 (MICRO-
CHIP, 2017b).
𝑉𝑆 − 𝑉𝑂𝑈 𝑇
𝑅𝐵𝐼𝐴𝑆 = (4.7)
𝐼𝐿 − 𝐼𝑄
The used 𝑉𝑆 Voltage Supply will be the 5V obtained in the circuit from Figure
50 in Section 4.11.1.1. According to the datasheet, the minimul operating voltage (𝐼𝑄 in
this case) is 100uA. Moreover, 𝑉𝑂𝑈 𝑇 is naturally 1.225V. The minimum bias current (load
current 𝐼𝐿 ) is of 500nA (according to the (TEXAS INSTRUMENTS, 2000)). Hence, any
value of resistance that guarantee that the current that flows through the regulator is less
than 10mA is acceptable.
Using a 1kΩ resistor a current of 3.775mA can be achieved. Figure 24 shows the
circuit for the 1V2 reference, the capacitors are just a bypass capacitors recommended by
the datasheet.
Figure 24 – 1.225V voltage reference circuit
4.5 Temperature Acquisition Channel

Figure 25 shows the solution overview for the thermocouple circuit.
Figure 25 – Temperature Measurement Block Diagram
The function of each block will be explained in the folowing sections.
4.5.1 Thermocouple Signal Conditioning

For this project it was defined that thermocouples of type K (formed by the junc-
tion of two metal leagues: Alumel and Cromel) would be used in this project. This is
because this specific type of thermocouple has a wide range of operation (-200∘ C to 1200
∘
C), so according to the requirements they are never too close from the boundary values,
a thermocouple of type T or even a type J would not be suitable. Other appealing factor
is that this type of thermocouple is quite common so getting eventual replacements would
be easier, in comparisson with type E thermocouples.
4.5. Temperature Acquisition Channel 59
As mentioned in Section 2.3.2, besides amplification and linearization, the ther-

mocouple signal also needs cold junction temperature difference compensation. There is
an integrated solution from Analog Device called AD8495, this IC functional diagram is
displayed on Figure 26.
Figure 26 – AD8495 Functional Block Diagram (DEVICES, 2011)
This IC produces a linearized output with a fixed gain of 5mv/∘ C, it is a quite

practical solution as it can be powered with single-supply voltage source and it’s output
saturates to the power supply voltage if the thermocouple is disconnected (ANALOG
DEVICES, 2010).
4.5.2 Input Protection and Filtering

Although this IC already has overvoltage and ESD protection, thermocouples tips
can pick a load of unwanted noise and transients. Hence, additional protection and external
filtering is also recommended by (DUFF; TOWEY, 2010). First thing to do is to add
current-limint series resistors, the drawback is doing that is that resistors in the circuit
net increases the overall noise. This type of noise is called Johnson-Nyquist Thermal Noise
or more commonly just by Johnson Noise, thermal agitation of electrons in a resistor
gives rise to random fluctuations in the voltage across its terminals (ROMERO, 1998).
Moreover, it can be calculated using the following Equation 4.8 where K is the Boltzmann
constant 1.38 · 10−23 , R is the resistance in ohms (Ω) and T the temperature in kelvin
( 300K at room temperature) (BRYANT et al., 2000).
√ √
𝑁 𝑜𝑖𝑠𝑒(𝑛𝑣 𝐻𝑧) = 4 · 𝐾 · 𝑅 · 𝑇 · 109 (4.8)
Because the protection circuit includes two equal resistors, whose noise is uncorre-
lated, that is, the two noise sources are independent of each other—the above result must
be multiplied by the square root of 2 (the root sum square of the two noise voltages) and
it is considered as a general rule design to tolerate additional Johnson Noise from 10 to
30% to the amplifier IC (BRYANT et al., 2000). (DUFF; TOWEY, 2010) suggests using
current-limiting resistors of 100Ω, according to the AD8495 datasheet (ANALOG DE-
√
VICES, 2010), the chosen amplifier (AD8495) has a voltage noise density of 32nV 𝐻𝑧.
Combining this resistors noise with the amplifier noise will produce an overall noise of
√
32.485nV 𝐻𝑧, which is just 1.5% above the amplifier’s own noise. Additional protection
can be achieved using TVS to protect the inputs from differential input overvoltage, con-
sidering a bidirectional TVS with a 10V breakdown voltage, the device will theoretically
limit the differential voltage between 10V and -10V, the AD8495 has overvoltage protec-
tion from -25V to 20V when powered with 5V, so this will help protecting the amplifier
inputs.
With the overloads protection done, another important feature to do is to filter
undesired signals in the inputs to avoid them to be amplified later, this is done by filtering
Radio Frequency Interference (RFI), signal lines (specially for low level signals) are quite
susceptible to RF interference (COUNTS; KITCHEN, 2006). Interference that occurs
on both lines are usually reduced by the amplifiers own CMRR (check Section 2.3.5.1),
but only on a limited bandwidth, also the in-amp rectifier cannot filter differential RF
interference. The chosen amplifier (AD8495) has a -3dB bandwidth at 25kHz, (DUFF;
TOWEY, 2010) suggests setting a common-mode cutoff filter frequency at 160kHz (in
order to guarantee the filter will not attenuate signals inside the 25kHz bandwidth). The
standard circuit for the RFI filter is displayed on Figure 27, resistors R and capacitors C𝐶
are used to filter common-mode interference. Capacitor C𝐷 is connected across the bridge
output to reduce any common-mode rejection errors due to the components mismatch,
that way filtering any differential interference. C𝐷 is usually chosen to be ten times larger
than C𝐶 (ANALOG DEVICES, 2010).
The -3dB common-mode bandwidth of this filter from Figure 27 is given by Equa-
tion 4.9 (COUNTS; KITCHEN, 2006).
1
𝐵𝑊𝐶𝑀 = (4.9)
2 · 𝜋 · 𝑅 · 𝐶𝐶
The -3dB differential bandwidth of this filter from Figure 27 is given by Equation
4.10 (COUNTS; KITCHEN, 2006).
1
𝐵𝑊𝐷𝐼𝐹 𝐹 = (4.10)
2 · 𝜋 · 𝑅 · (2 · 𝐶𝐶 + 𝐶𝑑 )
Using the values for the current limiting resistors (100Ω), Equation 4.9 and the
4.5. Temperature Acquisition Channel 61
Figure 27 – RFI
suggested cutoff frequency of 160kHz (DUFF; TOWEY, 2010), it is possible to calculate

a value of 10nF for C𝐶 . Chosing a C𝐷 value ten times larger than C𝑐 implies on using
a C𝐷 value of 100nF, that used on Equation 4.10 will produce a differential interference
filter cutoff frequency of 13kHz.
With all this considerations, the Thermocouple Signal Conditioning Circuit can
be seen in Figure 28.
Figure 28 – Thermocouple Signal Conditioning Circuit
Besides the RFI filter and the amplifier, only a few components were added. First
a TVS diode with a standoff voltage of 5V was placed on each of the thermocouple
signal tracks. According to (ANALOG DEVICES, 2010), in order to implement sensor
disconnection detection a 1M resistor should be added to the the thermocouple negative
track. More over a post amplification LPF with a cutoff frequency of aproximately 16Hz
was placed in order to filter any remain of noise uncorrelated to the thermocouple signal.
4.5.3 Thermocouple Sensor Detection
An important feature of any acquisition system is to detect when a sensor is dis-

connected from the the acquisition system input (O’MAHONY; GELFAND; MERRICK,
2011), because a signal acquisition circuit without the signal source will generate outputs
that are uncorrelated to what the system was designed to measure/sense on the outside
world. The AD8495 has a quite useful feature (ANALOG DEVICES, 2010), it offers open
thermocouple detection, the inputs of the AD8495 are PNP type transistors, which means
that the bias current always flows out of the inputs. This way, the input bias current dri-
ves any unconnected output high, which saturates the output to the maximum possible
reading, being in this case 1000𝑜 C or 5V (considering the fixed 5mv/𝑜 C gain). In Section
4.2, it was defined that the system must measure temperatures up to 600𝑜 C, with the fixed
gain of 5mv/𝑜 this means an output voltage of 3V. The so called Thermocouple Sensor
Detection must be able to detect whenever the output exceeds 3V. In order to do that,
the circuit displayed in Figure 29 was designed.
Figure 29 – Overvoltage Detection Circuit
U11 is an OPAMP working as a comparator, whenever the thermocouple signal

is higher than the 4V1 the OPAMP output will saturate to the 5V (the supply voltage
applied to the OPAMP). The net 4V1 will be further explained in Section 4.11.2.1, whereas
it is a constant voltage produced on the Power Supplies circuit block. The resistor R91
is a pull-down resistor used to guarantee that signal will go to low-logic level in case the
voltage in the inputs is not present. The capacitors C50 and C53 is just bypass capacitors
used to stabilize both the 4V1 and 5V supplies voltage.
4.6. Brake Force Acquisition Channel 63
4.6 Brake Force Acquisition Channel

4.6.1 Load Cell Signal
Load cells have very low output levels, usually from 2 to 3mV for each volt applied
at the bridge, and therefore an amplification stage is fundamental. It is not necessary to
know the nature of the strain gauges when a load cell is being calibrated since generally
the manufacturers provide a calibration curve based on the signals 𝑉𝑂 and 𝑉𝐸𝑋 of the
Figure 8, it is worth noting that these signals can not have the same reference, otherwise
it will not be possible to excite the wheatstone bridge correctly.
The most common way to amplify the signal of a load cell is using an instru-
mentation amplifier. Although it is a widely used configuration, assembling this amplifier
using three different operational amplifiers and seven resistors as in Figure 10 may make
it inaccurate due to manufacturing imperfections of the components. Another factor that
greatly influences the output signal of a load cell is the excitation voltage of its wheatstone
bridge, if it varies too much the output will vary greatly as well, which will hamper its
calibration.
4.6.2 Load Cell Signal Conditioning

In order to solve these two problems there is a solution widely used in the market
which is the INA125 from Texas Instruments (INSTRUMENTS, 1997), this IC is an
integrated single supply instrumentation amplifier with precision voltage reference. Other
good feature of this amplifier is that as it has a great CMRR (Common-Mode Rejection
Ratio check Section 2.3.5.1) of 100dB, making it very much suitable for conditioning
differential pair signals (such as the one from the Load Cell as Subsection 2.3.3 mentions),
more information of CMRR in Subsection 2.3.5.1. The only external component needed
is a resistor 𝑅𝐺 , as shown in Figure 30. This resistor will determine the gain (G) for the
amplification according to the Equation 4.11.
60𝑘Ω
𝑅𝐺 = (4.11)
𝐺−4
Taking into account the sensitivity of 2mV/V, this means that if the cell is excited
with 2V5, its output will vary from 0 to 5mV.
Since the analog input of the chosen microcontroller (Atmega32U4) is 0 to 5V, we
may to amplify the cell output signal by a factor of 500 in order to use the most number
of bits from de MCU’s ADC. Using Equation 4.11, to obtain a gain of amplification ratio
of the ideal 𝑅𝐺 would be 121Ω. This resistor will cause the IC output to range from
about 0V to 5V (0 to 2.5V for contraction and 2.5V to 5V for tension), using 100% of the
resolution of the microcontroller input.
Figure 30 – INA125 Schematic (INSTRUMENTS, 1997)
Figure 31 shows the schematic of the load cell conditioning circuit with the INA125.
The main components of this circut are
∙ TVS Diodes: INA125 only has overvoltage protection and not ESD protection, so
the TVS Diodes were add to enhance the ESD protection.
∙ Capacitors C18 and C19: Bypass capacitors for the signal lines.
∙ C15: A capacitor to filter noise between both lines.
∙ R39 and R43: Jumpers that can be replaced by resistors in case a RFI filter is meant
to be implemented using C24, C26 and C27.
∙ R36: The gain resistor.
∙ R44, R40 and C16: R44 is used to set the impedance from the load cell signal. R40
and C16 are used to form a LPF with a cutoff frequency of 15.91Hz to filter any
remaining noise from the load cell signal.
4.7. Vibration Acquisition Channel 65
Figure 31 – Conditioning Circuit for the Load Cell
4.6.3 Load Cell Sensor Detection

As was explained in Subsection 4.6.2, the circuit will saturate the output to the
supply voltage when the load cell sensor is disconnected. The circuit to detect this voltage
saturation is exact the same from the one used previously on the thermocouple circuit,
the circuit schematic and functional explanation can be found in Subsection 4.5.3.
4.7 Vibration Acquisition Channel

4.7.1 Accelerometer
The selected accelerometer for this project was the ADXL335 from Analog Devices
(DEVICES, 2010). This accelerometer was chosen because it is the cheapest one availabe
with the following characteristics:
∙ It has 3 axis sensing (easy to install).
∙ Low power operation (350𝜇A).
∙ 10,000 g shock survival.
∙ 1V8-3V3 Single-supply operation.
∙ ±3g measurements.
When powered up with 3V3 the sensor has a linear voltage output of 0V for -3g
and 3V3 for 3g. This sensor is ideal for this project, the only issue is the installation.
The sensor comes in a 16-LFCSP IC (Figure 32), and this IC needs to be installed where
acceleration is intended to be measured, so an additional board is necessary to install it.
Figure 32 – 16-LFCSP (DEVICES, 2016)
The are already embedded solutions that can solve this issue, such as the Adafruit
ADXL335 - 5V ready (ADAFRUIT, 2016). This small (19mm x 19mm) board (Figure
33) has the ADXL335 with the capacitors recommended by the datasheet, with a 3V3
voltage regulator so the board can be powererd up with 5V and with the mounting holes
to fix the board in any surface, making it ideal for this project.
Figure 33 – Adafruit ADXL335 - 5V ready (ADAFRUIT, 2018)
4.7.2 Signal Conditioning Circuit

The ADXL335 datasheet (DEVICES, 2010) says that for a -3g measured accele-
ration the device output is of 0V and for +3g measurement it is 3V3 voltage. The sensor
conditioning circuit is shown on Figure 34.
4.7. Vibration Acquisition Channel 67
Figure 34 – Accelerometer Signal Conditioning Circuit
The circuit is composed only of a protection and filtering circuit. TZ16 is a TVS
with a reverse standoff voltage of 5V, R105 and C63 form a LPF with cutoff frequency of
aproximately 1.6kHz, which should not interfere with the passband signal.
4.7.3 Sensor Detection Circuit

The chosen solution for the accelerometer (Adafruit ADXL335 - 5V ready), has an
integrated 3V3 voltage regulator. In Figure 33 it is possible to see that the 3V3 voltage
output from the voltage regulator has a connection point on the board. Hence, if a wire
is connected to this point and to the main circuit board, whenever this point does not
have 3V3 voltage the sensor is disconnected. Moreover, the detection circuit just need to
detect when the net is in 0V or 3V3.
The detection circuit can be seen in Figure 35, D14 is a schottky diode used to
protect the input from polarity change. TZ19 is a TVS used to protect the circuit from
overvoltage, R111 and C66 forms a LPF with cutoff frequency close to 16Hz used to
protect the NMOS gate from any fast transient.s
Figure 35 – Accelerometer Sensor Detection Circuit

4.8 Speed Reference Output Channel
4.8.1 Speed Control

For the braketests, somethings as important as measuring the speed of the rotor
is controlling it, as mentioned in Subsection 4.3.3. The rotor speed can be controlled in
two ways:
∙ First way is the deceleration of the rotor with the aid of the brake system using the
brake pads.
∙ Second way of controlling it by accelerating the rotor with the aid of the electric
motor.
The electric motor used is an alternate current three-phase type, it in order to control it’s
speed a frequency inverter was used. The frequency inverter has many different controlling
interfaces that lead to manipulating the three-phase electric system in order to control
the engine’s rotationary speed.
In this project the frequency inverter used was the Weg CFW-08 (shown in Figure
36, according to (WEG, 2009) there are many port interfaces that can be used to control
the desired speed remotely. One of this ways is using one of the device’s 0-10V analog
input with 8-bit resolution. According to the datasheet, this analog input can be used as
a speed reference with programmable gain (0 to 20), the input parameters are the lower
limit speed (when the input is on 0V) and the upper limit speed (when the input is at
10V).
Figure 36 – Weg CFW-08 Frequency Inverter (WEG, 2017)

4.8. Speed Reference Output Channel 69
The issue is that this project is microcontrolled, and MCU’s do not have analog
outputs, so a DAC circuit will need to be implemented. The MCU output will be a PWM
signal, moreover as mentioned in Section 2.3.6.3, a PWM signal can encode information
on a pulse train signal and this information can be decoded using a LPF, i.e. performing
a digital to analog conversion.
4.8.2 Filter characteristics definition

Fortunately the microcontroller has pre-configured PWM (Pulse Width Modula-
tion), a PWM signal can encode an analog voltage value proportional to it‘s duty cycle,
and this is usually done with the aid of a low pass filter that will extract this analog
voltage from the PWM signal. As said in the previous paragraph the frequency inverter
used in this project is the Weg CFW-08, and it’s analog input has a zero to ten voltage
input with eight bits of resolution. We can calculate the minimal voltage difference that
will change the output frequency of the device using Equation 4.12, in which Δ𝑉 is the
minimal voltage difference, 𝑉𝑚𝑎𝑥 is the maximum voltage and "n" is the number of bits
of the input resolution.
𝑉𝑚𝑎𝑥
Δ𝑉 = (4.12)
2𝑛 − 1
As mentioned in Section 4.10, the selected MCU has a five volts high logic level,
this voltage level will need amplification in order to best suit the zero to ten volts input
from the frequency inverter. However, as alrealdy mentioned in Section 4.8.1 the analog
input of the frequency inverter already has a 0-20 programmable gain that will be set to
two.
The maximum ripple is the Δ𝑉 from Equation 4.12. Equation 4.13 (METIVIER,
𝑑𝐵
2013) gives the necessary 𝑑𝑒𝑐𝑎𝑑𝑒 attenuation to guarantee a PWM converted signal desired
ripple.
𝑉𝑅𝐼𝑃 𝑃 𝐿𝐸
(︂ )︂
𝐴𝑑𝐵 = 20 · 𝑙𝑜𝑔 (4.13)
𝑉𝑃 𝑊 𝑀
As the 𝑉𝑃 𝑊 𝑀 will already be amplified prior to filtering, 𝑉𝑃 𝑊 𝑀 = 𝑉𝑚𝑎𝑥 , this will

produce the following Equation 4.14.
𝐴𝑑𝐵 = −20 · 𝑙𝑜𝑔 (2𝑛 − 1) (4.14)
And Equation 4.15 (METIVIER, 2013), is used to calculate the maximum needed
cuttoff frequency for the further to be designed LPF (Low-Pass-Filter) in order to convert
the PWM signal to an analog voltage. The slope value is the filter slope and for first order
filters and second order filters this slope value is equal respectively to 20dB/decade and
40dB/decade (METIVIER, 2013).
𝐴𝑑𝐵
𝑓𝑐 = 𝑓𝑃 𝑊 𝑀 · 10− 𝑆𝑙𝑜𝑝𝑒 (4.15)
It is possible to combine all this equations into one single equation to calculate
the needed cutoff frequency, is this done in Equation 4.16.
𝐴𝑑𝐵
𝑓𝑐 = 𝑓𝑃 𝑊 𝑀 · 10− 𝑆𝑙𝑜𝑝𝑒
−20·𝑙𝑜𝑔 (2𝑛 −1)
𝑓𝑐 = 𝑓𝑃 𝑊 𝑀 · 10− 𝑆𝑙𝑜𝑝𝑒
20
𝑛 −1) 𝑆𝑙𝑜𝑝𝑒
𝑓𝑐 = 𝑓𝑃 𝑊 𝑀 · 10𝑙𝑜𝑔(2
𝐾𝑛𝑜𝑤𝑖𝑛𝑔 : (4.16)
(︁ )︁
𝑋
𝑥 · 𝑙𝑜𝑔 (𝐴) = 𝑙𝑜𝑔 𝐴
10𝑙𝑜𝑔(𝐴) = 𝐴
𝑆𝑜 :
20·𝑛
𝑓𝑐 = 𝑓𝑃 𝑊 𝑀 · 2 𝑆𝑙𝑜𝑝𝑒
The default PWM frequency for the defined pins are 𝑓𝑃 𝑊 𝑀 = 490𝐻𝑧, also 𝑛 = 8
(number of bits of the ADC from the frequency inverter) and as according to (METIVIER,
2013), a second order LPF is better for converting a PWM signal to voltage and it has by
default 𝑆𝑙𝑜𝑝𝑒 = −40𝑑𝐵/𝑑𝑒𝑐𝑎𝑑𝑒, using Equation 4.16 it is possible to calculate a maximum
cutoff frequency of 30.68Hz.
4.8.3 Sallen-Key Low Pass Active Filter

The Sallen-Key LPF setup is probably one of the best second order filters archi-
tectures available (DORF; SVOBODA, 2014), this setup is displayed on Figure 37.
According to (TEXAS INSTRUMENTS, 1999), this filter setup has a cutoff fre-
quency defined by Equation 4.17.
1
𝑓𝑐 = √ (4.17)
2 · 𝜋 𝑅1 · 𝑅2 · 𝐶1 · 𝐶2
Using values of R1=100kΩ, R2=100kΩ, C1=100nF and C2=100nF means having

a cutoff frequency of 15.91Hz
4.8. Speed Reference Output Channel 71
Figure 37 – Sallen-Key Active Low Pass Filter (TEXAS INSTRUMENTS, 1999)
4.8.4 Circuit Simulation

Together with the previous calculations the circuit was simulated using the LTSpice
Software in order to ensure its functionality. Figure 38 shows the simulated circuit.
Figure 38 – Simulated Circuit
Figure 39 shows the input and output voltage for 25% configured duty cycle, after
the settling time the average output voltage was 1.19V.
Figure 39 – Simulation for 25% duty cycle

Overall the simulation confirmed the calculations, the average error of the output
in respect with the theoretical values of of 4%.
4.8.5 Complete Circuit
Based on all the previously calculations and on (TEXAS INSTRUMENTS, 1999),

the final circuit will be the one in Figure 42. Besides the main components of the filter
the added components were two bypass capacitors (C1 and C4), TZ1 is a TVS used to
protect the circuit from any transient voltage coming from the cable. Moreover, R1 was
added to limit the current that is drained from the analog output. The port AOUT_1 is a
feedback that goes to an analog input of the MCU so the output voltage can be adjusted
by varying the duty cycle.
Although only one analog output is needed, another one will be placed on the PCB
in order to allow the circuit to be used on other appliances on possible future projects.
4.9. Digital Interfaces 73
Figure 42 – PWM to Speed Reference Circuit
4.9 Digital Interfaces
4.9.1 Digital Outputs

4.9.1.1 Low-side Driver
Item 9 from Section 4.2 states that the system must have a digital output channel
to control a relay). According to (SONGLE, 2018), a standard 5V relay will have a nominal
current of 89.3mA, the microcontroller’s datasheet (MICROCHIP, 2018) says that the
maximum DC current per I/O pin is 40mA though. Hence it is not possible to activate a
relay connected directly to a MCU’s I/O pin.
In order to solve this a relay driver circuit needs to be used, in this case a low side
mosfet driver similar to the one from Figure (ELECTRONICS TUTORIALS, 2018) will
be used.
Figure 43 – PMOS low side driver (ELECTRONICS TUTORIALS, 2018)
This is a low-side driver, when the PMOS is submitted to a high logic level (5V)
in it’s gate it will enter on the cutoff region and will not conduct current, hence not
activating the relay. On the other hand, when a low logic level (0V) is applied to the
device’s gate it will enter the saturation region and will conduct current, hence activating
the relay.
4.9.1.2 Digital Output Circuit
The digital output circuit will be very similar to the one from Figure 43. The
power supply connected to the mosfet will be the 5V source (check Section 4.11.1.1), on
the PMOS drain there will be a TVS diode (SMBJ12A from Littlefuse (LITTLEFUSE,
2015)) (check Section 2.3.7.2), this TVS will help protecting the PMOS from reverse
current and from overvoltages. Figure 44 show the equivalent circuit for the digital output.
Figure 44 – Digital Output Circuit
The selected PMOS is the NDS332P from Fairchild (FAIRCHILD, 1997), it has
a maximum operating continuos current of 1A, maximum gate threshold voltage of 1V,
maximum drain-source voltage of 20V and maximum gate source voltage of ±8V. It is
adequate for this purpose. Resistor R7 is used to limit the magnitude of the current spike
that can occur when a driver switches fast and has to charge or discharge a large gate
capacitance. Resistor R5 is a pull-up for the gate, it will ensure that the PMOS will be
in cutoff region if there is no input for the MCU. Resistor R8 is optional, for activating
relays it is not needed, but other loads may require a pull-down, that is why it was placed
on the PMOS drain. It was decided to keep any relay out of the board to save space.
Moreover, keeping the relay out of the board gives room for using this digital output for
other purposes. Although the project Requirements only specifies two digital ouputs, as
4.10. MCU 75
there were unused MCU digital ports, a third digital output will also be placed on the
PCB layout.
4.9.2 Digital Inputs

This project does not have any requirement for digital inputs. However, in order
to make the project more versatile for the future, making it able to capture switch states
and possible external event, three digital inputs were added to the PCB. Figure 45 show
the circuit to interface the digital inputs.
Figure 45 – Digital Input Circuit
According to (ON SEMICONDUCTOR, 2014), the schottky diode on the input

has a reverse voltage of 30V and a foward voltage of 280mV. When a voltage lower than
280mV is present on the input, the voltage on the PMOS gate will be lower than than
its threshold (according to device’s datasheet (ROHM SEMICONDUCTOR, 2016)) the
PMOS will start to conduct current and the signal MCU_DIN_1 will go to 5V. When the
voltage on the input is higher than 280mV, the voltage on the PMOS gate will be higher
than the treshold voltage and the PMOS will not conduct current, therefore, because of
the pull down resistor R32, the signal MCU_DIN_1 will go to 0V.
4.10 MCU
The chosen MCU for the system is the ATMEGA32U4 manufactured by Microchip.
According to (MICROCHIP, 2017a) and (MICROCHIP, 2018) the main features of this
MCU are:
∙ Program Memory (Flash): 32KB.
∙ Communication Peripherals: 1-USB, 1-UART, 2-SPI, 1-I2C.
∙ ADC : 12-channels, 10-bit ADC.
∙ Operating Voltage Range: 2.7 to 5.5V.
This microcontroller family is widely used in academic environment (specially

after the Arduino project started, when microncontroller programming became much more
feasible and reachable), and is famous for being easy and reliable to use. The ATmega32U4
is really versatile and more important it meets this project requirements, listed in Section
4.2. A very useful feature of this MCU is that it has an USB 2.0 controller built-in,
this eliminates the need for an additional transceiver circuit, moreover this MCU can be
easily reprogrammable through the USB port, this being a very useful feature when the
hardware is fully assembled. Figure 46 shows the pinout of this device.
Figure 46 – ATmega32U4 pinout (PIGHIXX, 2018)

4.10. MCU 77
4.10.1 MCU circuit

This MCU is the same used on the Arduino Leonardo Board (ARDUINO, 2016),
whereas, in order to avoid implementation problems the MCU peripheral components
were chosen based on the Arduino board schematic (ARDUINO, 2010). The circuit with
all the peripheral components to the ATmega32U4 can be divided in five parts.
4.10.1.1 Core Circuit
Figure 47 shows the core circuit for the MCU.
Figure 47 – MCU Core Circuit
The components of his circuit and their respective functions are:
∙ U7 : The ATmega32U4 chip itself.
∙ C28 and C29 : This are bypass capacitors recommended by the datasheet.
∙ S1, D7 and R60 : RST is the reset pin of the MCU, it resets the MCU when low
logic voltage is detected. S1 is a push-button used to short circuit the RST pin to
ground and reset the MCU. R60 is a pull-resistor used to guarantee that RST pin
will remain in high logic voltage when the push-button is not being pressed.
∙ R61: This jumper will be explained in Section 4.10.1.2.
∙ L1 and C32 : This components form a LPF for the AVCC pin, which is the power
supply for the MCUs ADC.
∙ C33 and C34 : Both are bypassing capacitors recommended by the datasheet, C33
for the ADC internal voltage supply and C34 for the USB 2.0 controller.
∙ R63 : It is a pull-down resistor that enables hardware boot.
The MCU ports were defined as the following:
∙ DOUT_1, DOUT_2 and DOUT_3 : Digital Output ports
∙ DIN_1, DIN_2 and DIN_3 : Digital input ports.
∙ CKP_SIG, THERM_SIG_1, THERM_SIG_2, LOAD_SIG_1, LOAD_SIG_2 and

VIB_SIG: Those are respectively the analog input ports for the signal of: speed sen-
sor, first temperature sensor, second temperature sensor, first force sensor, second
force sensor, cibration sensor.
∙ CKP_CON, THERM_CON_1, THERM_CON_2, LOAD_CON_1, LOAD_CON_2

and VIB_CON : Those are digital inputs used to detect if one of the sensors from
the previous item were disconnected.
∙ PWM_OUT_1, AOUT_1, PWM_OUT_2 and AOUT_2 : Those are respectively:

first PWM output, MCU analog input to monitor the first system analog output,
second PWM output, MCU analog input to monitor the second system analog
output.
∙ SCK, MOSI and MISO: Those are signal used to program the MCU through ISP(In
System Programming).
∙ XTAL1 and XTAL2 : Respectively the input and output for the crystal oscilator
circuit.
∙ VUSB: This is the suppy voltage pin for the USB controller, it is being powered by
an external USB host connected to the board.
∙ DM and DP: USB data lines.
∙ RXLED and TXLED: Pins that goes to low logic level when data is being trans-
mitted and high logic level when not.
4.11. Voltage Supplies 79
4.10.1.2 Crystal Oscillator Circuit
According to (MICROCHIP, 2018), in order to work in full-speed mode, the MCU

needs an external crystal oscillator with a frequency of 8 to 16MHz and bypassing ca-
pacitors from 12 to 22pF on the crystal pins. Based on (ARDUINO, 2010) besides this
capacitor a 1MΩ bias resistor has been placed between crystal pins. Also a 0R jumper
(first mentioned in Item 4.10.1.1 from Section 4.10.1 was placed between one of the crystal
pins and pin XTAL2 in case a low pass filter is needed (using this resistor and the internal
capacitance of the MCU port). The designed circuit for the crystal oscillator is shown in
Figure 48 (except for the 0R jumper which can be seen in Figure 47.
Figure 48 – Crystal Oscillator Circuit
4.10.1.3 USB Port Protection Circuit
The USB Port Protection circuit was entirely based on the circuit from Arduino
Leonardo, the only component specified by the MCU datasheet are the 22Ω series resistors
as shown in Figure 49.
L2 and L3 are ferrite beads used to filter high frequency noise. Z1 and Z2 are
ESD supressors, alongside with the series resistors used to protect the MCU’s USB data
lines. Finally, C35 and C36 are bypass capacitors used to stabilize the voltage on the USB
power line.
4.11 Voltage Supplies

4.11.1 Power Supplies
In order to avoid any interference of the AC line, this project will work with a
DC voltage input and any other necessary voltages will be acquainted from this higher
Figure 49 – USB Port Protection Circuit
input voltage supply. There are many different types of voltage regulators, nowadays the
most common DC/DC being switching regulators. They are more efficient than linear
regulators and consequently they dissipate less heat, the downside is that they tend to
have some ripple at the output (SCHWEBER, 2017). However, as the ripple can easily
be filtered and that a switching power supply allows the input voltage to be of a much
bigger range, this solution was considered the best for the project.
4.11.1.1 5V Supply
The voltage supply was chosen to be a 5V DC supply because all the components
can work with this voltage. The chosen voltage regulator for the 5V supply was the
TL2575-05 from Texas Instruments (TEXAS INSTURMENTS, 2014), it has an output
up to 1A, voltage drop of 2V, typical efficiency of 88% and can work with a 7 to 42V
input. Figure 50 shows the circuit used for the 5V supply.
Figure 50 – 5V Power Supply Circuit
According to (TEXAS INSTURMENTS, 2014), the main components to be chosen

for the switching regulator are L4, C38 and D9. The inductor and the capacitor are used
to form a LPF to transform the PWM output of the switching regulator to a DC voltage.
D9 is a flyback diode used to shunt any negative current from the switching to ground
4.11. Voltage Supplies 81
and protect the device. The datasheet recommends using a 3A reverse current diode, a
330uH inductor and 330uF capacitor for the 5V regulator.
The other components of the circuit are:
∙ TZ10 : TVS diode to clamp to protect the input from ESD.
∙ F1 : resetable fuse, they will limit the current that flows into the circuit and protect
the TVS.
∙ D8 : A diode to protect the input from inverse polarity.
∙ C37 : Input bypass capacitor recommended by the device’s datasheet.
∙ C39 : Another bypass capacitor on the output to filter any residual noise.
4.11.2 Voltage References

In this project any power supply that the precision and stability of the output
voltage is more concerning than the maximum output current will be called a voltage
reference.
4.11.2.1 4V1 Reference
As said in Section 4.5.3, the sensor detection circuit needs a 4V1 voltage reference
for the comparator. This is achieved using the LM4040-4.1 from Microchip (MICROCHIP,
2017b). This is a fixed 4V1 precise voltage reference and according to the datasheet it has
a tolerance of ±1.15%. Figure 51 shows the circuit for the 4V1 voltage reference.
Figure 51 – 4V1 voltage reference circuit
According to the datasheet the current flowing through the LM4040-4.1 must be
never be greater than 15mA, voltage reference pins do need very little current, so a third
of this 15mA will be taken as goal. Considering the voltage drop of 0.9V (5V - 4.1V) and
the current of 5mA we need a 180Ω resistor in series with the regulator.
4.12 Circuit Fabrication and Assembly

4.12.1 PCB Design
The PCB layout for this project was developed using the Altium Designer 17
Software (ALTIUM. . . , 2017). During the layout design some things were considered to
ensure functionallity:
∙ Instead of soldering the connectors directly to the board, empty pads for soldering
wires were placed, this way connectors can be chosen later and fixed on the board
housing instead of on the board surface.
∙ Protection devices such as TVS, Fuses and current limiting resistors were placed
very close from the terminal pads in order to prevent cooper tracks to be damaged.
∙ SMT (Surface Mount Technology) was a priority during design in order to save
space on the board.
∙ Cooper tracks width: The width of every track was chosen according to the electrical
signal it is carrying.
Figures 52 and 53 shows respectively the top and the bottom side of the board
during design, most of empty spaces were replaced by ground planes in order to make
the board corrosion faster and to make a stronger gnd connection. Other interesting fact
is the width of power supply tracks, it is easy to notice they are much more thick than
normal signal tracks. The board dimmensions are 130mm x 80mm.
4.12. Circuit Fabrication and Assembly 83
Figure 52 – PCB Top 2D View
Figure 53 – PCB Bottom 2D View

Figure 54 – PCB Top View
Figure 55 – Real PCB Assembled

85
5 Firmware Project
5.1 Microcontroller programming basics

A microcontroller code is composed basically of two parts:
∙ Setup: This part of the code is only executed once, as the name may indicate, it is
used to set properties, configure timers, inputs and other features of the hardware.
∙ Loop: This part of the code is executed continuously or until some condition is
reached.
Other important component of a microcontroller code are interruptions. It is pos-

sible to interrupt the standard execution of a program when an event happens, or as it is
more common to say, when an event triggers an interruption. This event may be a timer
overflow, an event triggered by an input change among other things. Interrupt routines are
really useful when working with intrumentation and timers, because using interruptions
it is feasible to meet real-time requirements in a project (MUKARO; CARELSE, 1999).
5.2 Code Map

The Figure 56 show a functional map of the microcontroller code.
As soon as the microcontroller is turned on it enters in the Setup, on this part the
following things are setted:
∙ Acquisition Timer: Timer max count value is setted and an interruption service
routine is appointed, this timer is used for the analog sampling/reading function.
∙ LED Timer: Same thing done for Acquisition Timeris done for LED Timer, this
timer controls the blinking frequency of the MCU debug LED.
∙ Serial Port: The serial port baud rate is defined and the serial port is opened.
∙ Port mapping: The port mapping is done, i.e. digital I/O ports are defined as inputs
(high impedance) or as outputs (low impedance) and the analog ports are setted.
After setting up, the code enters in a state in which it waits for a command that can
be from three different groups. This commands are coded into ASCII characters (ASCII,
2017). Table 2 shows all proposed commands.
Each group of commands will lead to a specific block described in Figure 56.
86 Chapter 5 Firmware Project
Figure 56 – Microcontroller Code Map
∙ Digital Output Control: As mentioned in Section 4.3.3.1, there are three digital
outputs on the circuit board. Hence, there will be two commands for each digital
channel (on and off) plus a command to turn all the digital outputs off.
∙ Analog Output Control: Commands from this block will set the duty cycle for the
MCU PWM outputs that will be converted to analog outputs, as explained in Section
4.8.
∙ Acquisition State: There is only one command that will lead the code to this loop
(Filter Read). When in this loop, the code will read the analog outputs for a specific
number of times (Number Of Samples), i.e. sampling the signals. Each sample is
summed up and when the desired number of samples is reached, the code divides
the sum of all samples by this number, giving an averaged read. Then, this read is
print together will the digital inputs read to the upstream data port.
Additional to this commands there are the commands Print Version and One
Read, the first is a command that prints the firmware version, the latter performs one
read of the analog inputs and is only used for debugging.
5.2. Code Map 87
ASCII Command ASCII Command ASCII Command

32 Print Version 65 98 PWM 1 - DT 92%
33 Filter Read 66 99 PWM 1 - DT 96%
34 One Read 67 100 PWM 1 - DT 100%
35 DOUT - Reset 68 101 PWM 2 - DT 0%
36 DOUT 1 - ON 69 102 PWM 2 - DT 4%
37 DOUT 1 - OFF 70 103 PWM 2 - DT 8%
38 DOUT 2 - ON 71 104 PWM 2 - DT 12%
39 DOUT 2 - OFF 72 105 PWM 2 - DT 16%
40 DOUT 3 - ON 73 106 PWM 2 - DT 20%
41 DOUT 3 - OFF 74 107 PWM 2 - DT 24%
42 75 PWM 1 - DT 0% 108 PWM 2 - DT 28%
43 76 PWM 1 - DT 4% 109 PWM 2 - DT 32%
44 77 PWM 1 - DT 8% 110 PWM 2 - DT 36%
45 78 PWM 1 - DT 12% 111 PWM 2 - DT 40%
46 79 PWM 1 - DT 16% 112 PWM 2 - DT 44%
47 80 PWM 1 - DT 20% 113 PWM 2 - DT 48%
48 81 PWM 1 - DT 24% 114 PWM 2 - DT 52%
49 82 PWM 1 - DT 28% 115 PWM 2 - DT 56%
50 83 PWM 1 - DT 32% 116 PWM 2 - DT 60%
51 84 PWM 1 - DT 36% 117 PWM 2 - DT 64%
52 85 PWM 1 - DT 40% 118 PWM 2 - DT 68%
53 86 PWM 1 - DT 44% 119 PWM 2 - DT 72%
54 87 PWM 1 - DT 48% 120 PWM 2 - DT 76%
55 88 PWM 1 - DT 52% 121 PWM 2 - DT 80%
56 89 PWM 1 - DT 56% 122 PWM 2 - DT 84%
57 90 PWM 1 - DT 60% 123 PWM 2 - DT 88%
58 91 PWM 1 - DT 64% 124 PWM 2 - DT 92%
59 92 PWM 1 - DT 68% 125 PWM 2 - DT 96%
60 93 PWM 1 - DT 72% 126 PWM 2 - DT 100%
61 94 PWM 1 - DT 76% 127
62 95 PWM 1 - DT 80%
63 96 PWM 1 - DT 84%
64 97 PWM 1 - DT 88%
Table 2 – ASCII Commands Reference

89
6 Experimental Tests
After the board assembly and fabrication phases were finished to ensure that this
project attends its requirements. This chapter presents the experimental procedure, the
results as well with the discussion and possible improvements. This chapter will be splitted
in two parts, Section 6.1, Hardware Interfaces Test, will deal with the test of each acqui-
sition channel and with the two analog outputs. Section 6.2, Brake Test, deals with the
tests with the materials from Laboratory of Wear of Materials, this tests aim to validate
the hardware solution as a whole.
The experimental procedure is based on the brake test procedures proposed by
(SAE, 2003) described in Section 2.2.2. Basically the test will compreheend turning the
electric motor on (with the aid of the frequency inverter) and by monitoring the Speed
Acquisition Channel (check Section 4.4) wait until the rotor frequency reaches a pre-
defined upper limit and then after a configured delay time, stop accelerating the motor and
starts to brake until the system reaches a lower speed limit. During the entire procedure
the brake pressure, and the temperature on the disc shall be measured. This procedure
should be repeated for a set number of times called snubs.
6.1 Hardware Interfaces Test

During all the following tests, in order to incorporate the microcontroller’s analog-
to-digital converter error the monitored output was the analog read (0 - 1023) that can
be retreived from the serial port as the command cheatset at Table 2 from Section 5.2
shows.
6.1.1 Rotation Aquisition Channel Test

6.1.1.1 Configuration and Background
As mentioned in Section 4.4.1.1, the Rotation Acquisition Channel is based in a

frequency-to-voltage converter. Hence, in order to test this acquisition channel it must be
submitted to different input frequencies and this input frequency and the output voltage
should be registered so that the circuit gain can be compaired to the theoretical value.
The input of this circuit was wired to a function generator configured on the
following way:
∙ High Voltage Level = 5V

90 Chapter 6 Experimental Tests
∙ Low Voltage Level = -5V
∙ Waveform = Triangular
A triangular waveform was chosen because it is the most similar to a CKP signal as
Figure 4 shows. For the tests the input frequency was varried from nought to 150Hz
(check Section 4.4.1.2) at a 10Hz step.
6.1.1.2 Results and Discussion
Table 3 shows the results from the test described above.
Frequency (Hz) Output Read Output Voltage (V) Gain

0 170 0.831 -
10 198 0.968 13.67
20 226 1.105 13.68
30 254 1.241 13.68
40 282 1.378 13.68
50 310 1.515 13.68
60 338 1.652 13.68
70 366 1.789 13.68
80 394 1.926 13.68
90 422 2.063 13.68
100 450 2.199 13.68
110 478 2.336 13.68
120 506 2.473 13.68
130 534 2.610 13.68
140 561 2.742 13.65
150 589 2.879 13.65
Table 3 – Rotation Acquisition Channel Test Results
The theoretical voltage output was calculate at Section 4.4.1.2 and is described by
Equation 6.1 bellow.
𝑉
𝑉𝑂 = 1.225𝑉 + 0.015 · 𝑓𝐼𝑁 · (6.1)
𝐻𝑧
The average voltage gain from the circuit of 13.68Hz and the experimental error
was 8.8%, the standard deviation was only 0.01 Hz though. That means that even though
the circuit gain is almost 10% different from the theoretical gain, the circuit gain varries
very little along the frequency input range.
The major difference the calculated to the real voltage output Equation is the
voltage offset. Although it was designed to be 1.225V, the measured value was 0.831V,
this is probably due to the lack of a high impedance buffer between the voltage reference
6.1. Hardware Interfaces Test 91
circuit and the frequency-to-voltage converter offset pin. A future version of this project
should consider an operational amplifier to fix this issue. However, as Table 3 shows, the
circuit has a linear output in respect to the input, the only difference during the tests is
that test applications should consider a 0.831V offset instead of a 1.225V offset.
The voltage output of the Rotation Acquisition Channel can be calculated using
Equation 6.2 bellow.
𝑉
𝑉𝑂 = 0.831𝑉 + 0.01368 · 𝑓𝐼𝑁 · (6.2)
𝐻𝑧
6.1.2 Temperature Acquisition Channels Test

As mentioned in Section 4.5.1, the Temperature Acquisition Channel as implemen-

ted using an IC that performs amplification, linearization and cold junction compensation,
meaning it already gives an output voltage with a fixed gain of 5mv/∘ C in respect to the
measured temperature.
In order to perform the test, the tip of the thermocouple connected to this circuit
was placed touching the tip of another thermocouple connected to a multimeter from
TEK instruments (model number: TEK Instruments 10709). Both tips were heated using a
soldering iron placed close to the thermocouple tips, the Temperature Acquisition Channel
was evaluating compairing the reads from the multimeter to the reads (0 - 1023) acquired
through the acquisition serial port at every 20∘ C interval.
6.1.2.2 Results
6.1.2.2.1 Channel 1
Table 4 shows the results from the test described above done at the first Tempe-
rature Acquisition Channel.
The average error from the circuit from the thermocouple tip to the value measured
in the microcontroller’s analog-to-digital-converter is 3.02% and the standard deviation
is 1.25%.
6.1.2.2.2 Channel 2
Table 5 shows the results from the test described above done at the second Tem-
perature Acquisition Channel.
Input Temperature (∘C) Analog Read Read Temperature (∘C)

40 43 42.03
60 65 63.54
80 83 81.13
100 105 102.64
120 124 121.21
140 146 142.72
160 170 166.18
180 191 186.71
200 210 205.28
Table 4 – Temperature Acquisition Channel 1 Test Results
Input Temperature (∘C) Analog Read Read Temperature (∘C)

40 42 41.06
60 63 61.58
80 83 80.16
100 103 101.66
120 125 122.19
140 147 143.70
160 170 167.16
180 192 187.68
200 206 201.37
Table 5 – Temperature Acquisition Channel 2 Test Results
The average error from the circuit from the thermocouple tip to the value measured
in the microcontroller’s analog-to-digital-converter is 2.27% and the standard deviation
is 1.06%.
6.1.2.3 Discussion
The used thermocouple amplifer datasheet (ANALOG DEVICES, 2010) specifies

a maximum signal conditioning error of ±2%, considering that this test includes the error
from the thermocouple tip to the serial port, only 1% higher for the first channel and
only 0.27% higher for the second channel than the amplifier on error is a great result and
shows the quality of the chosen solution.
6.1.3 Brake Force Acquisition Channels Test

As mentioned in Section 4.6.2, the Brake Force Acquisition Channel is a bridge

amplifier with a gain of 500 and voltage output offset of 2.5V.
In order to test this interface, the input of this channel will be submitted to input
6.1. Hardware Interfaces Test 93
voltages from -4mv to 4mV at a 0.5mV step. This input voltage range was chosen because
according the amplifier datasheet (INSTRUMENTS, 1997), when the device is powered
up with 5V the voltage output can only typically go from 0.3V to 4.2V, and this input
voltage range amplified by a factor of 500 with an offset of 2.5V will not go beyond the
specified output voltage range.
6.1.3.2 Results
6.1.3.2.1 Channel 1
Table 6 shows the results from the test described above done at the first Brake
Force Acquisition Channel.
Input Voltage (mV) Analog Read Calculated Voltage (mV)

-4.0 97 474.10
-3.5 153 747.80
-3.0 205 1001.96
-2.5 250 1221.90
-2.0 360 1495.60
-1.5 357 1744.87
-1.0 401 1959.92
-0.5 438 2140.76
0.0 495 2419.35
0.5 555 2712.61
1.0 615 3005.87
1.5 632 3088.95
2.0 697 3406.65
2.5 728 3558.16
3.0 815 3983.38
3.5 855 4178.89
4.0 921 4212.68
Table 6 – Brake Force Acquisition Channel 1 Test Results
The average experimental error for this amplification circuit was 2.43% and the
standard deviation is 1.81%.
6.1.3.2.2 Channel 2
Table 7 shows the results from the test described above done at the second Brake
Force Acquisition Channel.
The average experimental error for this amplification circuit was 1.92% and the
standard deviation is 1.39%.
Input Voltage (mV) Analog Read Calculated Voltage (mV)

-4.0 98 478.98
-3.5 154 752.69
-3.0 204 997.07
-2.5 243 1187.68
-2.0 304 1485.83
-1.5 347 1695.99
-1.0 404 1974.58
-0.5 462 2258.06
0.0 506 2473.12
0.5 551 2693.06
1.0 600 2932.55
1.5 669 3269.79
2.0 701 3426.20
2.5 766 3743.89
3.0 822 4017.60
3.5 852 4164.22
4.0 993 4211.15
Table 7 – Brake Force Acquisition Channel 2 Test Results
6.1.3.3 Discussion
With this test the Brake Force Acquisition Channel amplifier showed satisfatory
results, with errors of less than 3%. The combination of this precise amplifier and the
Precision Voltage Reference provided by this IC gives a great compound solution for
dealing with load cell signals.
6.1.4 Analog Speed Reference Output Channels Test
6.2 Brake Test

6.2.1 Materials
The are few materials needed to perform the braketests, most of the materials
needed for the validation tests were borrowed from the Wear of Materials Laboratory
from University of Brasília, the way the materials are disposed can been seen in Figure
57.
The frequency inverter used on the tests is the WEG-CFW08, it is an important
part of the tests as it is responsible for controlling the speed and acceleration of the motor
by varying the current on the three-phase lines that feeds the motor. It has four digital
inputs, two analog inputs, two digital outputs alongside with two analog outputs (WEG,
2009). For the tests only the digital inputs will be used to turn the motor on and off,
Figure 58 shows the device installed and fixed on the Laboratory‘s pannel.
6.2. Brake Test 95
Figure 57 – Materials Disposition
Figure 58 – Frequency Inverter WEG-CFW08

The electric motor used is manufactured by WEG, this is a three-phase motor that
has 12.5 cv of power, 1755 max RPM and has an efficiency of 87.7% and it is connected
to the brake disc machine through a pulley system. Figure 59 the motor itself.
Figure 59 – Electric Motor WEG
Brake Disc Machine is a machine wielded on Wear of Materials Laboratory in order

to simulate a car’s axle submitted to inertial masses. One end of the axle is connected
to the electric motor through a pulley system and the other end is connected to the disc
brake components as Figures 60, 61 and 62.
Figure 60 – Brake Disc Machine
The Load Cell used to measure the brake force has a sensibility of 2mV/V and a
maximum load of 500kgf, meaning when it is powered with 2V5 (check Section 4.6.2) and
submitted to its maximum load the voltage output will be of 5mV. Figure 63 shows how
the load cell can be used to measured the braking force and Figure 64 shows the actual
load cell installed on the Brake Disc Machine.
This project uses two generic type K themocouples at each end of the braking disc,
as Figure 65 shows.
6.2. Brake Test 97
Figure 61 – Brake Disc Machine Pulley System
Figure 62 – Brake Disc Arrangment
Figure 63 – Load Cell Installation Scheme (CAIXETA, 2017)

Figure 64 – Load Cell Installed
Figure 65 – Thermocouples Installed
This project also includes a generic Crankshaft Position Sensor, to enhance the
CKP signal amplitude six small magnets were placed around the inertial disc that the
CKP is perpendicular mounted to, the only important consideration when doing this is
that the CKP will actualy measure a frequency six times higher than the actual rotation
frequency of the axel. Figure 66 shows how the CKP sensor was placed.
Additional materials used for the test are the developed hardware and the laptop
used to run the test.
6.2.2 Test Application

In order to perform the test a LabView application was developed to control the
lower level hardware and perform data processing, the application main screen can be
seen in Figure 67.
6.2. Brake Test 99
Figure 66 – CKP installed
Figure 67 – Test Application Main Screen

The main screen is divided in three parts, first part displays the sensors readings,
thermocouples measured temperature, rotation frequency and RPMs and load cell braking
force. On the bottom of the screen the test configurations, them being:
∙ Number of Snubs: The number of times each brake iteration will be done.
∙ Interval between snubs (s): The amount of seconds that an interface will wait at the
end of a brake iteration before accelerating the motor again.
∙ Upper Limit (RPM): At each snub the system will accelerate the electric engine
until the rotor reaches this pre-defined rotation rhythm.
∙ Upper Wait Interval (s): After reaching the upper rotation limit the system will
wait for this interval before braking.
∙ Lower Limit (RPM): The system will perform braking until the rotor reaches this
lower RPM limit.
∙ Lower Wait Interval (s): After reaching the Lower Limit the system will for this
interval.
The software itself will take full control of the test, it will turn the electric motor
on when needed, turn the brakes one
6.2.3 Full Stop Test

The desired test will be the full stop test, described by (CAIXETA, 2017) as a test
where the speed is set to an upper limit and then to nought rotation at the end. In order
to evaluate the reliability from developed hardware.the test shall be carried a hundred
times.
In order to start the brake test the following parameters were configured on the
Labview Test Application as Table 8 shows.
Parameter Value Description

Number of Snubs 100 To achieve reliable data.
Interval Between Snubs 5s Allows the brakes to cool down after each Snub.
Upper Limit 500 rpm Almost the maximum rotation of the rotor (580rpm)
Upper Wait Interval 3s Just enough so that the speed can stabilize
Lower Limit 0 rpm The ideia is to fully stop the system.
Lower Wait Interval 1s Just enough to guarantee no momentum is present.
Table 8 – Test Parameters Setup
The goal of this tests is not to evaluate braking performance of components of a

brake system but rather to achieves that the developed hardware can be used for that, i.e.
6.2. Brake Test 101
showing that the measured quantities are directly related to the tests are being carried
out. Hence, it is expected that temperature should increase after each snub. Morover, as
the measured braking pressure increases and the CKP signal frequency should decrease
rapidly. Moreover, it shall be possible to see a variation in brake efficiency when the brakes
starts to get hotter.
6.2.4 Full Stop Tests Results and Discussion

Figure 68 shows a graph with the measured quantities on the first ten of the
hundred snubs.
Figure 68 – Measurements of the first ten snubs of the test
Based on experiment results, it is possible to see the correlation between the mea-
sured quantities. Clearly the measured rotation falls rapidly as the brake force saturates to
a maximum brake force value. Furthermore, at each brake event, detected when the brake
force increases, the temperature measured on each of thoose thermocouples increases.
Taking a more detailed look at the temperature variation at each snub, Figure 69
show the measured brake force regard the measured temperature at the first ten snubs.
This graph states the correlation between the temperature of the brake pads and the
braking action, and the fact that the temperature increases during the braking act is
perfectly in agreement with the fact that a braking system can be analysed as a kinectic
to thermal energy converter, at is was explained in Section 2.1.
Whereas the temperature increases at each snub, there may be a point where the
temperature reaches an equilibrium, Figure 70 shows the variation of temperature during
Figure 69 – Temperature and Brake Force Measurements of The First Ten Snubs
the 100 snubs, it is possible to see that even that the temperature bounces at each snub,
there may be a point were the temperature stabilizes close to a certain temperature.
Figure 70 – Temperature Variation During The Whole Test
Another interesting point to analyse is the effect of the temperature of the pads
and the rate of desaceleration of the rotor. Figure 71 shows the desaceleration curves at
each snub and shows that during the test the brake efficiency was slightly reduced as the
temperature would increase.
6.2. Brake Test 103
Figure 71 – Deceleration During the Whole Test
6.2.5 Frequency Inverter Analog Input Test

6.2.5.1 Analog Output Duty Cycle Tests
In order to test the analog output of the system an additional test using just
a serial terminal was performed to validade the analog output and its usage with the
frequency inverter. Before starting this test the frequency inverter was configured to take
the 0-10V analog input as its speed reference with a gain of two and maximum rotation
of 500rpm. Whereas, when 5V is present at this analog input the rotor should spin at a
rotation close to 500rpm and when 2.5V is present at the input the rotor should spin at
a rotation close to 250rpm.
The test was carried out varying the analog output from 50 to 100% duty cycle
(2.5 to 5V), taking 50 samples at every 10% interval, i.e. taking 50 samples at 50%, 50
samples at 60%, 50 samples at 70%, 50 samples at 80%, 50 samples at 90% and finally
50 samples at 100%. At each sample the CKP acquisition channel and the analog output
feedback channel were monitored.
6.2.5.2 Results and Discussion
Figure 72 shows the analog output voltage in respect with the duty cycle.
It is possible to see that the measured output was really faithful to the theoretically
calculated output, the average error was just 3.35% which is pretty low. If we disconsider
the measured values from 0% and 100% this erros falls to 1.58%, probably this is related
to the fact that 0% and 100% produces a theoretically output of 0V and 5V, which is
Figure 72 – Analog Output in Respect with Duty Cycle
respectively the negative and positive supply of the operational amplifier from the analog
output circuit (check Section 4.8.5). Although the error for 0% and 100% is more than
two times the error from the rest of the possible duty cycles, it still is quite small, and
this happens because the chosen amplifier for the analog output circuit has rail-to-rail
input/output.
Different from the brake tests from Sections 6.2.3 and 6.2.4, the frequency inverter
was always on, the consequence of this is that the noise from the electric motor and the
frequency inverter was always interfering with the CKP sensor signal. Figure 73 shows
the measured rotation in respect with the duty cycle.
The signal is extremely noisy, compared to the theoretical rotation. However, even
with all that noise it is possible to see that the signal is varying within a range close to
the desired rotation. Maybe with a more sophisticated software it would be possible to
treat this signal better to achieve better results.
6.2.6 Vibration Testes

As mentioned in Section 4.7, the Vibration Acquisition Channel can be seen as a

protection circuit that allows an input signal from 0 to 3.3V inside a frequency bandwidth
of 1.6kHz to pass to the microcontroller’s analog to digial converter.
6.2. Brake Test 105
Figure 73 – Rotation in Respect with Duty Cycle
In order to test this interface, a Full Stop Test similar to the one from Section
6.2.3 was performed. However, with only 10 snubs and this time, only the rotor spinning
frequency and the accelerometer signal were monitored. Moreover, the rotor spinning
frequency was also monitored when the machine was stabilizing at the upper speed limit.
6.2.7 Results
Figure 74 shows the results from the vibration test, each of the orange pikes re-
present a snub. Moreover, it is important to state that mg means 10− 3 · 9.8 𝑠𝑚2 and not
miligrams.
6.2.7.1 Discussion
The goal of this tests was to show how the acceleration perpendicular to the shaft
would vary along a testing snub. From the results it is possible to take the following
conclusions:
∙ The acceleration, i.e. vibration of the machine is greater when the rotor is spinning.
The average acceleration during this phase was 336.73 mg.
Figure 74 – Vibration Acquisition Channel Test Results
∙ At each snub, when the brake phase starts, i.e. when the rotation starts to decrease,
vibration is minimal, almost none, probably noise has a great contribuition to this
signal. The average acceleration during the braking phase was 23.67 mg.
∙ During the act of release of the brakes, when the rotor reach the lower speed limit,
there is a small peak of vibration.
∙ When the brake is released and the motor is turned off, the vibration is quite small.
The average acceleration during the this phase was 40.80 mg.
It was also clearly that the vibration range of the chosen sensor,-3g/+3g (DEVI-
CES, 2010) was too wide for the measurements, the absolute maximum measured accele-
ration value was 656 mg (or 0.652g). A sensor with a narrow measurement range would
better suit this application.
107
7 Conclusions and Future Endavours
7.1 Conclusions
The goals of this work can be summarized as being the project of an electronic
test bench to perform brake tests in automotive components, and this goal was achieved.
As the tests proved the testbench can perform the required data acquisition of the
specified physical quantities listed on Section 4.1 and also meet the mandatory require-
ments from Section 4.2 as well as the system can control the actuators needed for the
brake tests.
During the project phase of this system, versatility was always in mind, the system
does not only have the basical functionalities specified on SAEJ2522, it also achieved all
the optional requirements from Section 4.2. At the end, a multifunctional hardware with
transient protection in all ports was delivered. An interesting point of the developed
hardware is that as it operates with pre-defined commands comming from its generic
USB emulated serial port, any higher level software can theoretically be used to control
it, as long as it respects the defined communication protocol.
The results of the brake tests performed shows a crucial point of this system,
repeatability, the braketests were carried out for a hundred snubs without any interruption
or bug, making the system extremely reliable. The transient protections circuits worked
really well, even in the noisy and transient-dangerous environment created by the three-
phase motor and frequency-inverter, not a single circuit was damaged during the tests.
As mentioned before, this system is extremely versatile, making it able to perform
many different functions. Although this system was initially developed with the final goal
of performing braketests, at another point of view it can be seen as a control and acqui-
sition system. For example, considering it has thermocouple reading inputs and digital
inputs, it could be used to control a SMT (Surface Mount Technology) reflow oven tem-
perature. Moreover the force acquistion channels can be used to control an industrial
precision scale. Considering a vibration channel was implemented, even a vibration test-
bench could be controlled and monitored. Possibilities are infinite, the only restriction is
the amount of inputs and outputs of the designed hardware.
7.2 Future Endavours

A possible interesting improvement for this project would be developing a perso-
nalized software instead of using a default LabView application. An open source plataform
108 Chapter 7 Conclusions and Future Endavours
could make the system more capable of being readily changed and maybe developing a
system using Java could even make it easier to migrate the system to a web plataform.
A future version of this project could maybe consider switching from an integrated
architecture to a distribuited one, instead of putting all acquisition channels in one board,
a single board for each acquisition channel could be created and all this boards could
communicate through an I2C or RS485 bus for example. That way the system versatility
would be only limit to the number of allowed devices on the bus. Moreover, as the sensors
cables could be smaller (peripheral boards would be placed closer to the sensors), there
would probably be less noise captured by those cables.
109
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University of Brasília – UnB

Faculty UnB Gama – FGA

Electronic System for Data Acquisition and

Author: João Victor Avancini Guimarães

Electronic System for Data Acquisition and Control of a

Thesis submitted to the course of undergra-

University of Brasília – UnB

Advisor: Evandro Leonardo Silva Teixeira Ph.D.

Advisor: Evandro Leonardo Silva Teixeira Ph.D.

Graduation Thesis – University of Brasília – UnB

Electronic System for Data Acquisition and Control of a

Thesis submitted to the course of undergra-

Thesis approved. Brasília, DF, 30𝑡ℎ of November of 2018:

Evandro Leonardo Silva Teixeira

Wellington Avelino do Amaral Ph.D.

Edison Gustavo Cueva Ph.D.

Eng. Ricardo Noronha Junior

Key-words: Electronic Instrumentation. Brake Test. Automotive Systems Simulation.

Figure 1 – Schematic for disk brake systems (NICE, 2017) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29

Figure 19 – Project Problem Depuration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51

Figure 56 – Microcontroller Code Map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86

Figure 57 – Materials Disposition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95

Table 1 – Thermocouples and their operation ranges . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

Table 2 – ASCII Commands Reference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87

Table 3 – Rotation Acquisition Channel Test Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90

SAE Society of Automotive Engineers.

GUI Graphical User Interface.

ABS Anti-lock Braking System.

CKP Crankshaft Position Sensor.

GPIO General-Purpose Input/Output.

SRAM Static Random-Access Memory

EEPROM Electrically Erasable Programmable Read-Only Memory.

DIP28 Dual In-line Package 28pins.

ISR Interruption Service Routine.

MCU Microcontroller Unit.

DAQ Data Acquisition.

PWM Pulse Width Modulation.

N-MOSFET N channel Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor Field-Effect Transistor.

LPF Low-Pass Filter.

TVS Transient Voltage Supressor.

OPAMP Operational Amplifier.

USB Universal Serial Bus.

UART Universal Asynchronous Receiver-Transmitter.

USART Universal Synchronous-Asynchronous Receiver-Transmitter.

ESD Electrostatic Discharge.

EMI Electromagnetic Interference.

RFI Radio Frequency Interference.

DAC Digital-to-Analog Converter.

ADC Analog-to-Digital Converter.

RTD Resistance Temperature Detector.

Pa Pascal: Unit used to measure pressure.

kPa 103 Pascal.

MPa 106 Pascal.

kph Kilometer per hour: Unit used to measure speed.

m Meters: SI unit used to measure distance.

s Seconds: SI unit for measuring time.

hp Horsepower: Unit used to measure power.

kB KiloBytes: Used to measure memory size.

V Volts: SI unit for measuring electrical potential.

Ω Omega: SI unit for measuring electrical resistance.

A Ampere: SI unit for measuring electrical current.

g Earth gravity acceleration (9.8𝑚/𝑠2 ).